Annette evidently turned the question over in her mind, and then looked doubtfully at her friend. "I am grateful to you that I escaped the outside shame," she said. "But that seems such a little thing beside the inside shame, that I could have done as I did. I had been carefully brought up. I was what was called _good_. And it was easy to me. I had never felt any temptation to be otherwise, even in the irresponsible _milieu_ at father's, where there was no morality to speak of. And yet--all in a minute--I could do as--as I did, throw everything away which only just before I had guarded with such passion. _He_ was bad, and father was bad. I see now that he had sold me. But since I have been lying here I have come to see that I was bad too. It was six of one and half a dozen of the other. There was nothing to choose between the three of us. Poor Dick with his unpremeditated escapade was snow-white compared to us, the one kindly person in the sordid drama of lust and revenge." "Where do I come in?" asked Mrs. Stoddart. "As an unwise angel, I think, who snatched a brand from the burning." "You are the first person who has had the advantage of my acquaintance who has called me unwise," said Mrs. Stoddart, with the grim, benevolent smile which Annette had learnt to love. "And now you have talked enough. The whole island is taking its siesta. It is time you took yours." Mrs. Stoddart thought long over Annette and her future that night. She had made every effort, left no stone unturned at Fontainebleau, to save the good name which the girl had so recklessly flung away. When Annette succumbed, Mrs. Stoddart, quick to see whom she could trust, confided to the doctor that Annette was not Mr. Le Geyt's wife and appealed to him for help. He gravely replied that he already knew that fact, but did not mention how during the making of the will it had come to his knowledge. He helped her to remove Annette instantly to a private lodging kept by an old servant of his. There was no luggage to remove. When Mr. Le Geyt's aunt and her own doctor arrived late that night, together with Mr. Le Geyt's valet, Annette had vanished into thin air. Only Mrs. Stoddart was there, and the nurse to hand over the patient, and to receive the cautious, suspicious thanks of Lady Jane Cranbrook, who continually repeated that she could not understand the delay in sending for her. It was, of course, instantly known in the hotel that the pretty lady who had nursed Monsieur so devotedly was not his wife, and that she had fled at the approach of his family. Mrs. Stoddart herself left very early next morning, before Lady Jane was up, after paying Annette's hotel-bill as well as her own. She had heard since through the nurse that Mr. Le Geyt, after asking plaintively for Annette once or twice, had relapsed into a state of semi-unconsciousness, in which he lay day after day, week after week. It seemed as if his mind had made one last