Mrs. Jarsell shuddered. "She has an idea, but I hope it will not be necessary for her to carry out her idea. After all, things may not be so bad as they seem, Mr. Halliday." "If you mean the police, I am afraid they are," he retorted with another shrug and with great emphasis; "by this time my friend Laurance has informed the Scotland Yard authorities of what we know." "What do you know?" demanded Mrs. Jarsell, with a gasp, and she was forced to lean against the door for support. "Everything," said Dan, briefly; "so with your permission I shall have my breakfast, Mrs. Jarsell," and he began to eat with a good appetite. "Oh, how can you; how can you?" cried the big woman, convulsively; "think of the danger you stand in." "I shall escape!" "Escape, and from Queen Beelzebub? Nobody has ever escaped her." "I shall, and you will be the means of my escaping." "Me?" Mrs. Jarsell used bad grammar in her astonishment; "how can I----" "That is your affair," broke in Halliday, pouring out the coffee. "Why should I help you to escape?" "Because you are a woman and not a fiend. Miss Armour is one, I admit, but I can see very plainly that you are a most unwilling accomplice." "I am, I am," cried Mrs. Jarsell, vehemently; "years ago I was a decent woman, a good woman. She came into my life again and poisoned my existence. She worked on my jealousy and on my fear and----" "I know; I know. She enabled you to get rid of your husband." "Ah!" Mrs. Jarsell reeled back as though she had been struck; "she told you that, did she?" "She told me everything." "Then you will never escape; she would never let you go free with the knowledge you have of her secrets. You are doomed. As to my husband," Mrs. Jarsell appeared to be speaking more to herself than to Dan, "he was a wicked and cruel wretch. He starved me, he beat me, he was unfaithful to me, and led me such a life as no woman could endure. Miss Armour showed me how to rid myself of him, when I was distraught with misery and passion. I thought it was sympathy with me that made her help me. It was not. All she desired was to gain some hold over me, and use my money for her own vile ends." "You don't appear to love her," said Halliday, coolly. The woman closed the door, placed her back against it and clenched her hands in a cold fury. "I hate her; I loathe her; I detest her," she cried, in a guttural voice, evidently consumed with rage. "For years and years and years I have been her slave. After I killed my husband, under her directions--although I don't deny but what he deserved death--there was no retreat for me, as she could have, and would have, informed the police. I should have been hanged. She made use of her power to use my money in order to create this wicked society. It murders and slays and blackmails and----" "I know; I know," said Dan, soothingly; "she told me all about it." "Then you know how evil she is! I have had to commit crimes, from which my better self shrank, at her command."