They were driven away. Lady Montbarry’s variable humour changed again. With a low groan of misery, she threw herself back in the cab. Lost in her own dark thoughts, as careless of the woman whom she had bent to her iron will as if no such person sat by her side, she preserved a sinister silence, until they reached the house where Miss Lockwood lodged. In an instant, she roused herself to action. She opened the door of the cab, and closed it again on Mrs. Ferrari, before the driver could get off his box. “Take that lady a mile farther on her way home!” she said, as she paid the man his fare. The next moment she had knocked at the house-door. “Is Miss Lockwood at home?” “Yes, ma’am.” She stepped over the threshold—the door closed on her. “Which way, ma’am?” asked the driver of the cab. Mrs. Ferrari put her hand to her head, and tried to collect her thoughts. Could she leave her friend and benefactress helpless at Lady Montbarry’s mercy? She was still vainly endeavouring to decide on the course that she ought to follow—when a gentleman, stopping at Miss Lockwood’s door, happened to look towards the cab-window, and saw her. “Are you going to call on Miss Agnes too?” he asked. It was Henry Westwick. Mrs. Ferrari clasped her hands in gratitude as she recognised him. “Go in, sir!” she cried. “Go in, directly. That dreadful woman is with Miss Agnes. Go and protect her!” “What woman?” Henry asked. The answer literally struck him speechless. With amazement and indignation in his face, he looked at Mrs. Ferrari as she pronounced the hated name of “Lady Montbarry.” “I’ll see to it,” was all he said. He knocked at the house-door; and he too, in his turn, was let in. CHAPTER XI “Lady Montbarry, Miss.” Agnes was writing a letter, when the servant astonished her by announcing the visitor’s name. Her first impulse was to refuse to see the woman who had intruded on her. But Lady Montbarry had taken care to follow close on the servant’s heels. Before Agnes could speak, she had entered the room. “I beg to apologise for my intrusion, Miss Lockwood. I have a question to ask you, in which I am very much interested. No one can answer me but yourself.” In low hesitating tones, with her glittering black eyes bent modestly on the ground, Lady Montbarry opened the interview in those words.