"I have told you my terms," she said. "Some of you know all about it, I dare say! Tell me the truth and you shall have the packet, any one of you." Wrayson leaned forward. "The truth is simple," he said earnestly. "We do not know. I can answer for myself. I think that I can answer for the others." "Then the packet shall help me to find out," she declared. The Baroness shook her head. "It will not do, my dear girl," she said quietly. "The packet is not yours." The girl faced her defiantly. "Who says that it is not mine?" she demanded. "I do," the Baroness replied. "And I!" Wrayson echoed. "And I say that it is hers--hers and mine," Sydney Barnes declared. "She shall do what she likes with it. She shall not be made to give it up." "Mrs. Barnes," the Baroness declared briskly, "you must try to be reasonable. We will buy the packet from you." Sydney Barnes nodded his head approvingly. "That," he said, "is what I call talking common sense." "We will give you a thousand pounds for it," the Baroness continued. "It's not enough, not near enough," Barnes called out hastily. "Don't you listen to them, Agnes." "I shall not," she answered. "Ten thousand pounds would not buy it. I have said my last word. I am going now. In three days' time I shall return. I will give up the letters then in exchange for the name of my husband's murderer. If I do not get that, I shall go to the police!" She rose and walked out of the room. They all followed her. The Baroness whispered in Wrayson's ear, but he shook his head. "It is impossible," he said firmly. "We cannot take them from her by force." The Baroness shrugged her shoulders. She caught the girl up upon the stairs and they descended together. Wrayson and Sydney Barnes followed, the latter biting his nails nervously and maintaining a gloomy silence. At the entrance, Wrayson whistled for a cab and handed Agnes in. Sydney Barnes attempted to follow her. "I will see my sister-in-law home," he declared; but Wrayson's hand fell upon his arm. "No!" he said. "Mrs. Barnes can take care of herself. She is not to be interfered with." She nodded back at him from the cab. "I don't want him," she said. "I don't want any one. In three days' time I will return." "And until then you will not part with the letters?" Wrayson said. "Until then," she answered, "I promise." The cab drove off. Sydney Barnes turned upon Wrayson, white and venomous. "Where do I come in here?" he demanded fiercely. "I sincerely trust," Wrayson answered suavely, "that you are not coming in at all. But you, too, can return in three days." CHAPTER XXXVIII INEFFECTUAL WOOING "At last!" Wrayson said to himself, almost under his breath. "Shall we have a hansom, Louise, or do you care for a walk?" "A walk, by all means," she answered hurriedly. "It is not far, is it?" "A mile--a little more perhaps," he answered. "You are sure that you are not tired?"