“Listen,” he said coldly, stretching his feet out and lighting a cigarette. “My son tells me you say he killed your governess and the man you and she saw fit to hide in my house. You had better disabuse your mind of that; and to help you I will tell you who you are--the granddaughter of that crazy old man on the island. You may break away from here and tell all you imagine, and if you do I will prove you as mad as he.” He waited for an answer, but she only cowered as if he had struck her. Somehow it was no surprise. All her life she had been told there was something about her that was inhuman, horrible. She knew what it was now--remembered with horror how she had soothed the madman’s cats with a song she must have inherited the trick of. “You see,” he said, “you can do nothing. Your friends, as you chose to think them, are dead.” “I can go back to the convent,” she muttered, for at least she could hide her head there. “You can go nowhere,” he answered coldly. “We did our best to take care of you, and you repay us with ingratitude. If I were wise I would put you in an asylum at once before you had a chance to spread your crazy imaginings. But I will give you a chance. See,” he went on slowly, “if with solitude and quiet you will perhaps come to your right mind. My son----” “Why did you say he was your nephew?” This man could only kill her, and at least she would strike back at him first. “Did I?” he returned coolly. “If you think, you will find it was Salome who told you that.” The memory of that morning flashed back on her. It had not been Salome who introduced “My nephew, Mr. Erle.” “You see,” he pursued, with a shrug, “you cannot remember anything correctly.” “I remember this much,” and a tide of fury swept over her, taking all her terror away. She sprang up and faced him, with the resemblance to him more marked than ever. “You knew that island wasn’t safe, but something made you change your mind about letting me die there. The evening you went back to the yacht because you were afraid to stay after what happened to Andria, she followed you. She heard every word you said to your nephew where you stood behind the cypress thicket--and Heriot heard, too. You have done nothing but lie to me. Even your name isn’t true!” She shook with passion where she stood over him and for once he lost his self-control. “This knowledge didn’t last long,” he said brutally, for he was not afraid of the dead, “nor will yours, if you make me angry. Your governess was a treacherous, infamous woman, who made use of my house to send for her lover.” “She never sent. He was wrecked there,” she could hardly speak for rage. “Oh, you did well to kill him! In another day he would have saved us both.” Erceldonne’s face was livid.