"I gave her the money and told her to wait until nightfall and then slip out and go to the Rychlovskys. They had promised to help her in any way they could, and with Bébita waiting in the cab, I couldn’t go with her. It was a simply hideous position to have to leave her that way. But it was all I could think of—it came so unexpectedly I was stunned by it. "When I reached the bookbindery the taxi was gone! Can you imagine what I felt? I told the truth when I said my first thought was that Bébita might have played a joke on me. I _did_ think that, for my mind, confused and crowded with deadly fears, could not take in a new catastrophe. Then, when I saw Mrs. Price and realized that the child had mysteriously disappeared, while with _me_, while in _my_ charge—I—well, I hope I’ll never have to live over moments like those again. I had to keep one fact before my mind—to be quiet, to be cool, not to do or say anything that might betray Florry. If I’d known what you suspected, I couldn’t have done it. But, of course, I hadn’t any idea then you thought I was implicated. "Florry had told me she would communicate with Mr. Price and he would give me word of her. The telephone message that Miss Rogers tapped was that word; all I received. It relieved me immensely, I began to feel the dreadful strain relaxing, I began to think we were on the high road to safety. And then came that day here in the office. Shall I ever forget it!" She turned to Mrs. Janney: "If I had had the least idea of what was going to be done here, I would have tried to get to you and have thrown myself on your mercy. But I was completely unsuspecting and unprepared, and with Mr. Whitney as the judge, representing the law, I did not dare to tell the truth, I _had_ to lie. "As you saw, I lied as well as I could, puzzled at first, not knowing what you were getting at, to what point it was all leading. Then, when you caught me with the tapped message, I saw—I guessed how circumstances had woven a net about me. I realized there was nothing to be done but let you believe it, let you do what you wanted with me. You couldn’t _make_ me speak, and if I could stay silent till Florry was in Europe, hidden, lost in the chaos of a country at war, it would be all right." She swept their faces with a glance, half pleading, half triumphant.