“Listen to me!” she cried--and if her face was ghastly, over her black gown her red-brown hair shone like fire and her eyes swayed him, for all their weariness and red rims--“listen to me. The girl is yours, but the man is mine! It is my quarrel, and I will settle my debts for myself. If you stay you may kill him before you’re killed yourself, if it comes to main force; but do you think it is death I want for the man who’s killed all the good in me? I want more than that. I want him to live, with all his schemes ruined; to suffer as he has made me suffer; to starve as he turned me out to starve. If he gets the girl he will have to kill me first--I, that was bone of his bone! But it won’t come to that. I’ll put him off. I’ll make Beryl make time; I’ll tell her my secret that has ruined me, body and soul. But there won’t be any need before you’re back,” and with a sudden listlessness she sat down at the table. “Eat his meat and drink his wine; it will be as good a weapon against him as a revolver,” she said, with an evil look in her half-closed eyes. But he knew it was not she, but what a man had made her, that had taught her that look. “I’ve no money,” he began shamefacedly. “I have. Salome’s wages,” and she drew a roll of gold out of her pocket. “Salome’s wages for Erceldonne’s work!” but her laugh made Heriot wince. “I’ll go now!” he said, pushing back his plate. “Tell her!” Andria could only nod. She was helping Beryl to freedom and happiness, and to what was she helping herself? Only to the just payment for her broken life. Even Mother Benedicta could not blame her. “So,” she said, very low; “the dawn is coming. But be quick. I can’t promise to protect her for more than three days.” “I’ll be back in one--at dawn to-morrow.” Andria sprang to her feet. “Hush!” she whispered. “Did you hear anything?” Heriot shook his head. “You’re done up, tired out,” he returned gently. “There’s nothing--not a sound!” For sole answer she put out the light. He felt her hand on his wrist as she led him in the dark across the room and out on a disused veranda. “Go this way, and be quick, quick!” she cried in the same toneless whisper. “It’s the only chance to save her now.” She watched him as he ran across a narrow belt of moonlight and disappeared in the blackness of the scrub. Then, noiseless in her stocking feet, she searched every inch of the wide veranda round the house. There was no one there, no one in the garden. Her wrought-up nerves must have deceived her, and it had been fancy that she heard out of the darkness of the veranda behind the dining-room Egerton’s uncontrollable, cackling laugh. CHAPTER XXVI. A SEALED PACKET. Reassure herself as she might, Andria fairly fled through the empty passages to Beryl’s room.