"Yes. Adrienne must go out of town, and I'm going to run down to some little country place and find rooms for her and Mrs. Adams." "Find rooms?" Diana stared at him amazedly. "But surely--won't they go to Red Gables?" Max shook his head. "No. It wouldn't be safe after this--this affair. The same brute might try to get her again. You see, it's quite well known that she has a house at Crailing." "Who is it that is such an enemy of hers?" Max hesitated a moment. "It might very well be some former actor, some poor devil of a fellow down on his luck, who has brooded over his fancied wrongs till he was half-mad," he said, at length. Diana's eyes flashed. So that item of news intended for the morning papers was also to be handed out for home consumption! "What steps are you taking to trace the man?" Again Max paused before replying. To Diana, his hesitation strengthened her conviction that he was, as usual, withholding something from her. "Well?" she repeated. "What steps are you taking?" "None," he answered at last reluctantly. "Adrienne doesn't wish any fuss made over the matter." And yet, Diana reflected, both her husband and Miss de Gervais knew quite well who the assailant was! "The taller of the two," Adrienne had said through the telephone. Why, then, with that clue in her hands, did she refuse to prosecute? Suddenly, into Diana's mind flashed an answer to the question--to the multitude of questions which had perplexed, her for so long. She felt as a traveller may who has been journeying along an unknown way in the dark, hurt and bruised by stones and pitfalls he could not see, when suddenly a light shines out, revealing all the dangers of the path. The explanation of all those perplexities and suspicions of the past was so simple, so obvious, that she marvelled why it had never occurred to her before. Adrienne de Gervais was neither more or less than an adventuress--one of the vampire type of woman who preys upon mankind, drawing them into her net by her beauty and charm, even as she had drawn Max himself! This, this supplied the key to the whole matter--all that had gone before, and all that was now making such a mockery of her married life. And the "poor devil of a fellow" who had attempted Adrienne's life had probably figured largely in her past, one of her dupes, and now, understanding at last what kind of woman it was for whom he had very likely sacrificed all that made existence worth while, he was obsessed with a crazy desire for vengeance--vengeance at any price. And Adrienne, of course, in her extremity, had turned to her latest captive, Max himself, for protection! Oh! it was all quite clear now! The scattered pieces of the puzzle were fitting together and making a definite picture.