"There I disagree with you, my dear--I can call you my dear in private, as you are my niece--but Joseph was always hard and grasping, and ever had an eye to the main chance. Well, he is rich, and has now got rid of his wife, so he can marry into the Peerage if he likes. I expect Dora is glad she is dead, now that she is on the other side of the grave. Joseph killed her." "Killed her?" Audrey, with a sudden fear, turned deadly white. "Oh, I don't mean to say that he strangled her," said Madame Coralie, hastily, "for he is too careful of his skin to risk hanging; but his neglect killed her. She was always a good and faithful wife to him, and he broke her heart." "Papa was rather unkind," said Audrey, nervously, but relieved by this explanation. Madame again laughed shortly. "Unkind--rather unkind!" she repeated. "Why, he treated her like a brute. She told me all about it. Fancy the poor soul coming to me to be made young again, in the hope that she could regain Joseph's affections. I told her that she was a fool; but she _would_ waste her money. And perhaps she wanted to help me also," added Madame Coralie, in a softer tone. "Dora was always fond of me." "She knew that you kept this shop?" "Yes. In fact, she helped me to set up the shop some years ago. I made her promise that she would never tell Joseph of my existence, and she kept her word. Yet Joseph remembered me. Strange." "Papa said that you had the brains." Madame Coralie looked round the room disdainfully. "And to what have my brains brought me? I am simply a renovator of faded women, and had to borrow money from Dora to set up the establishment. Flora Arkwright is lost in Madame Coralie." "Mrs. Edward Vail, you mean," said Audrey, quietly. "Oh!"--the woman shrugged her heavy shoulders--"I married Eddy so as to have a companion. He's a handsome fool, and goes about making love to younger women, while he lives on my money. However, he is always good-tempered, and suits me well enough. But in Bleakleigh I believed that my destiny would have been a better one. Dreams, my dear dreams." "You were born at Bleakleigh?" Madame Coralie nodded and folded her stout arms. Then, rocking to and fro, she related her story and the story of her sister. It was strange to Audrey, this history of her mother's early life. Lady Branwin had always been too much afraid of her husband to tell about her early struggles. "Dora and I were the daughters of a labourer," said Madame Coralie. "She was very pretty, and I--well, my dear, who could be pretty with this?" and she touched the birthmark. "Although it was lighter when I was a girl, I have tried so hard to remove it that I expect I made it worse. If my customers saw it they would never believe that I could remove blemishes from their silly faces. For that reason I always wear the yashmak. My keeping what is called a Turkish shop gives me a chance of doing so." "I quite understand," said Audrey, gently. "But tell me about my mother."