"I can understand," he said, "that you find my presence a little unwelcome. I need scarcely say that this is not a visit of courtesy. You know very well that willingly I would never spend a moment under the same roof as you. I am here to speak a few plain words, to which you will do well to listen." She raised her eyes to his. Her courage seemed to be returning at the note of battle in his tone. Her small, well-shaped head was thrown back. The hands which grasped the sides of her chair ceased to tremble. "Go on," she said. "We will not play at cheap diplomacy," he said, sneeringly. "I know you by a dozen names, which you alter and adopt to suit the occasion. You are a creature of the French police, one of those parasitical creatures who live by sucking the honesty out of simpler persons. You are here because the more private meetings of the English Council of Defence are being held at Rowchester. It is your object by bribery, or theft, or robbery, or the seductive use of those wonderful charms of yours, to gain possession of copies of any particulars whatever about the English autumn manoeuvres, which, curiously enough, have been arranged as a sort of addendum to those on your side of the Channel. You have an ally, I regret to say, in the Duke's son, you are seeking to gain for yourself a far more valuable one in the person of this boy. You say to yourself, no doubt, Like father, like son. You ruined and disgraced the one. You think, perhaps, the other will be as easy." "Stop!" she cried. He looked at her curiously. Her face was drawn with pain. In her eyes was the look of a being stricken to death. "It is terrible!" she murmured, "that men so coarse and brutal as you should have the gift of speech. I do not wish to ask for any mercy from you, but if I am to stay here and listen, you will speak only of facts." He shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. "You should be hardened by this time," he said, "but I forgot that we had an audience. It is always worth while to play a little to the gallery, isn't it? Well, facts, then. The boy is warned against you, and from to-day this house is watched by picked detectives. Blenavon can avail you nothing, for he knows nothing. Such clumsy schemes as last night's are foredoomed to failure, and will only get you into trouble. You will waste your time here. Take my advice, and go!" She rose to her feet. Smaller and frailer than ever she seemed, as she stood before Ray, dark and massive. "Your story is plausible," she said coldly. "It may even be true. But, apart from that, I had another and a greater reason for coming to England, for coming to Braster. I came to seek my husband--the father of this boy. I am even now in search of him." I held my breath and gazed at Ray. For the moment it seemed as though the tables were turned. No signs of emotion were present in his face, but he seemed to have no words. He simply looked at her.