"Of course," she answered in a low, firm tone. "But that's not half the craft and cunning she displayed, as you will perceive later. I know I have acted wrongly, and should have long ago placed my suspicions before the police, but I feared to do so, lest I should be arrested for the fraud. From day to day I lived on in anxiety and breathless wonder, Mrs. Blain or Blain himself being constant visitors to The Hollies, while now and then Hartmann would come down from London, as if called in for consultation. At length, one day in early June, we returned to the house in Upper Phillimore Place, Madame announcing her intention to remain there a month. Our neighbours, the Coulter-Kerrs, were delighted at our return, for they seemed to know hardly a soul in London. After we had been there about a week Mrs. Blain and Mary called one afternoon, and while I chatted to the latter in the dining-room, Mrs. Blain talked privately with Madame in the room beyond. The door was closed, as usual, and they were conversing only in low whispers, when suddenly their voices became raised in heated discussion. A quarrel had arisen, for I heard Mrs. Blain exclaim quite distinctly: `I tell you I have never dreamed of any such thing; and I'll never be a party to it. Such a suggestion is horrifying!' Then Madame spoke some low words, to which her companion responded: `I tell you I will not! From this moment I retire from it. Such a thing is infamous! I never thought that it was intended to act in such a manner.' To this Madame made some muttered observation regarding `absurd scruples' and the impossibility of detection, whereupon Mrs. Blain flounced forth from the room in a high state of indignation, saying, `Mary, it's time we should go, dear, or we shan't be home for dinner.' Then she made a cold adieu to the woman who had been her most intimate friend, and with her daughter departed." Eva's breath came and went rapidly in the intensity of her emotions, her thin nostrils slightly dilated, and as she paused her lips were firmly pressed together.