"Colonel," he said hoarsely, "you're not serious! You can't be! Be careful. This woman means mischief. She will take you at your word." "How else should she take me?" the Colonel asked calmly. "I suppose her prejudice in favour of this man was natural, but all I can say is that, under similar circumstances, I should act to-day precisely as I did on the night when I found him about to sell a woman's honour, for money to minister to the degraded pleasures of his life." The woman leaned towards him, venomous and passionate. "You're a nice one to preach, you are," she cried hysterically, "you, with a man's blood upon your hands! You, a murderer! Degraded indeed! What were his poor sins compared with yours?" The Colonel shook his head sadly. "I am afraid, my dear young lady," he said, "that I should never be able to convert you to my point of view. You are naturally prejudiced, and when I consider that I have failed to convince my own daughter"--he glanced towards Louise--"of the soundness of my views, it goes without saying that I should find you also unsympathetic. You are anxious, I see, to leave us. Permit me!" He held open the door for her with grave courtesy, but Wrayson pushed him aside. He had recovered himself to some extent, but he still felt as though he were moving in some horrible dream. "Colonel!" he exclaimed hoarsely, "you know what this means! You know where she will go!" [Illustration: "'TO THE NEAREST POLICE STATION! THAT'S WHERE I'M OFF.'"] "If he don't, let me tell him," she interrupted. "To the nearest police station! That's where I'm off." Wrayson glanced quickly at the Colonel, who seemed in no way discomposed. "Naturally," he assented. "No one, my dear young lady, will interfere with you in your desire to carry out your painfully imperfect sense of justice. Pray pass out!" She hesitated for a moment. Her poor little brain was struggling, perhaps, for the last time, to adapt itself to his point of view--to understand why, at a moment so critical, he should treat her with the easy composure and tolerant good-nature of one who gives to a spoilt child its own way. Then she saw signs of further interference on Wrayson's part, and she delayed no longer. The Colonel closed the door after her, and stood for a moment with his back against it, for Wrayson had shown signs of a desire to follow the woman whose egress he had just permitted. He looked into their faces, white with horror--full of dread of what was to come, and he smiled reassuringly. "Amy," he said, turning to the Baroness, "surely you and Wrayson here are possessed of some grains of common sense. Louise, I know, is too easily swayed by sentiment. But you, Wrayson! Surely I can rely on you!" "For anything," Wrayson answered, with trembling lips. "But what can I do? What is there to be done?" The Colonel smiled gently.