She met his eyes squarely as she spoke, but her lips trembled at times as if she were undergoing an ordeal. "Mr. Prale," she said, "as you know, I have been associated with others in an attempt to bring retribution home to you. When I became associated with them, it was understood between us that there was to be no violence, nothing outside the law. We were simply to attack you from every angle, cause you trouble and annoyance, take away your money if we could, break you in every way." "Pardon me, but----" "Please say nothing until I am finished, Mr. Prale. We began at once to gather all the information we could about you and your affairs. We began to plan for your downfall. We found that we could do nothing that amounted to anything while you were in Honduras, where you were a powerful man. But we were about to try, even there, when we learned that you were selling out your properties and preparing to return to New York. "You may know how that struck us. You had gone away and made your fortune, and you were coming home, possibly with the hope that the past had been forgotten. We intended showing you that it had not been forgotten, that you could not return and enjoy the fortune whose foundation was----But enough of that! "I had been in Honduras spying upon you. I was sent because you did not know me, and would not be on guard, as you might have been, had some man gone down there. We did not care to send an ordinary detective, of course. I kept the people here informed of all your movements. I began the punishment by leaving that note in your stateroom and pasting the other on your suit case, began it by reminding you that the past lived in the minds of some persons. "You know the rest. We began our work. We caused you annoyance from the first, with the banker, the hotel manager, and all that. Before we could do any more, you were accused of murder. That pleased us, of course. We did not believe you guilty, but we were glad to see that you were being caused some trouble, that your name was being stained. Some of us even began to think that the law of retribution was at work itself, without our poor help. "We went ahead with our plans, however. You engaged a prominent attorney, and finally we induced him to leave you. But some who were handling the affair went too far. You were assaulted in Central Park. Your valet was knocked on the head and kidnaped, and an attempt made to get him to take payment and spy upon you. At that time I told a certain man who had the handling of the affair that there could be no more violence.