Was she exaggerating, or was Edwards such a monster as she made out? But Grewgus, a shrewd judge of demeanour, guessed by her emotion, her fervent accents, that she was telling the truth, that this man had terrorized and ill-treated her, that but for his devilish power over her she would have broken away. She remarked incidentally that she and her mother had a fair amount of money put by, their share of the proceeds from the various schemes in which they had taken part under the leadership of Stormont and Whitehouse. She gave him a great deal of information about Edwards. This rascal had specialized chiefly in blackmail, using her in most cases as a decoy, and his activities in this direction had almost exclusively been practised abroad. The affair with Lord Wraysbury was the only serious _coup_ he had attempted in his own country. This unscrupulous scoundrel was intensely proud of his birth and social connections, and that perhaps was the reason he did so little in England. “But, from what he said to Whitehouse, on the day after you had so thoroughly frightened him, I don’t think he will ever return. You see, he is not sure how much you know. He guesses your inquiries were made on behalf of a private person, but he also remembers you threatened him with Scotland Yard,” said the young woman when she had concluded this portion of her story. Grewgus explained to her that he could not very clearly see his way to assist her in her schemes of vengeance on her brutal husband, as he had appeared to confine himself almost exclusively to acts of blackmail abroad. “In all these cases,” he told her, “there is no chance of securing the co-operation of the victims. If we could have connected him with the kidnapping of Calliard, which resulted in unintentional murder, you yourself could assist the Belgian police, who have abandoned the case. But you emphatically say he was somewhere else at the time. All he did, I suppose, when in Paris was to convey the instructions set out by Stormont, and meet you from day to day to learn what progress you were making. When you both left that city, I presume others were engaged in the affair.” Mrs. Edwards admitted that this was so. In spite of the prejudice engendered against her by his knowledge of her evil past, Grewgus had to admit that the woman had extraordinary powers of fascination. They influenced him so far that he found himself pitying her profoundly for being tied to such a brutal husband, so much so that he voluntarily offered his services to her if Edwards should again seek to intrude himself into her life.