He looked from her to Beryl and back again and knew what he must do. “And who,” he said calmly, “are you?” “No one,” she answered steadily, “now! Shall I tell you who I was?” Her eyes blazed at him, standing at the window of the very room where she had thanked God he had come back to her. The man shrugged his shoulders. “No,” he said, “stand back! I will tell you what you were, and are. A woman who is no fit companion for an innocent girl, who is here under false pretenses and a feigned name.” His quick ear had caught footsteps coming up the stairs, and as Andria caught her breath at the words that were true enough in their way, Raimond Erle turned to his father. “So this is your governess!” he cried, before she could speak. “Do you know who she is? A woman who was the talk of all London--a woman no girl should so much as see!” “Raimond!” She had been his wife for five years, or she thought so; small wonder she cried out as if he had struck her. She reeled where she stood. “Take the girl away,” said Erle savagely. “Don’t you understand?” But at that cry of his son’s name Lord Erceldonne had understood indeed. It was this woman and no other who had enslaved Raimond for five years, and the very irony of fate had brought her here to ruin him. “Andria, what does he mean? What does he know about you?” Beryl had sprung between the two men and flung her arms round Andria’s neck. But the woman stood cold as marble. “Come!” said Erceldonne, between his teeth. He laid his hand on Beryl’s shoulder and she tore it away. “Andria, speak to me, don’t mind them!” she cried. “I believe in you. I don’t care what they say, Andria, darling.” Erle’s discarded wife caught her in her arms and stood back, knowing that the time was come. “I am what you made me!” she cried to the man whom once she had loved. “I will take care you have no other girl to torture as you have tortured me. Oh, I know why you want her, why you changed your minds about letting her die here!” She came a step nearer to Erle, still holding Beryl clasped in one arm. “But you forgot me!” Her breast heaved as if she could not breathe. She kept her eyes on Raimond’s face and never saw Erceldonne as he slipped behind her. There was no stopping the tongue of a furious woman, but if Beryl heard her story the game was up. And without the girl, ruin stared him in the face. Dead or alive, they must have her, and there was no driving Raimond when he had the bit in his teeth. He would have her quick, not dead, in spite of all the discarded women in London. “Come,” he repeated, with a voice he tried to make shocked but only made angry. “This is no place for you. And as for you, madam,” to Andria, “we will leave you to the society of your friend, Mr. Heriot. I may say that what I saw last night shocked and pained me inexpressibly.”