"Yes!" answered Nesta unflinchingly. "You're acting like an enemy--you are an enemy!" "I've hoped that you and I would be friends--good friends," said Pratt, with something like a sigh. "And if I may say so, I've no feeling of enmity towards you. When I speak of us being adversaries, I mean it in--well, let's say a sort of legal sense. But now I'll show you my hand--that is, as far as I please. Will you listen quietly to me?" "I've no choice," replied Nesta bluntly. "And I came here to know what you've got to say for yourself. Say it!" Pratt moved his chair a little nearer to his visitor. "Now," he said, speaking very quietly and deliberately, "I'll go through what I have to say to you carefully, point by point. I shall ask you to go back a little way. It is now some time since I discovered a secret about your mother, Mrs. Mallathorpe. Ah, you start!--it may be with indignation, but I assure you I'm telling you, and am going to tell you, the absolute truth. I say--a secret! No one knows it but myself--not one living soul! Except, of course, your mother. I shall not reveal it to you--under any consideration, or in any circumstances--but I can tell you this--if that secret were revealed, your mother would be ruined for life--and you yourself would suffer in more ways than one." Nesta looked at him incredulously--and yet she began to feel he was telling some truth. And Pratt shook his head at the incredulous expression. "It's quite so!" he said. "You'll begin to believe it---from other things. Now, it was in connection with this that I paid a visit to Normandale Grange one evening some months ago. Perhaps you never heard of that? I was alone with your mother for some time in the study." "I have heard of it," she answered. "Very good," said Pratt. "But you haven't heard that your mother came to see me at my rooms here in Barford--my lodgings--the very next night! On the same business, of course. But she did--I know how she came, too. Secretly--heavily veiled--naturally, she didn't want anybody to know. Are you beginning to see something in it, Miss Mallathorpe?" "Go on with your--story," answered Nesta.