“Think this over, take the night to consider it,” she said, with a coaxing change of tone. “It would be a most unwise thing to give up in a hurry a business which you are certainly the head of at present. What do you want? You are making money, and you will presently make more. Don’t be rash. Be advised, and remember that I am ready, in the future as in the past, to take the greater part of the hard work upon my own shoulders, and to leave the ornamental and easy and pleasant part to you!” “But it’s not pleasant,” protested Audrey, “to be always at the beck and call of a class of people I don’t like!” “Bah! All the people are lovable when their purses are long!” retorted Laure. “Think it over; sleep upon it; and we will have another talk about this in the morning.” Audrey agreed to this, not that there was the least prospect of her changing her mind, but because she wanted time to consider the rather gruesome prospect opened by the woman’s words. Was she really to lose all the money she had invested? Was it possible that, by cunning devices of which she was ignorant, Mr. Candover had induced her to sign mock-agreements, and that she had left herself no alternative but to remain at the head of the shady and repellant business which was, she felt sure, only a blind to the more nefarious one which had been carried on at “The Briars,” or to lose all her fifteen hundred pounds? “Be here early in the morning,” were Mademoiselle Laure’s last words, “and I will tell you what conclusion I have arrived at, and you shall tell me if you agree with me.” So on the following morning Audrey, who had gone back to her old rooms and found them vacant, came to the showrooms at an early hour, and found Mademoiselle Laure gracious and unusually conciliatory. “I have considered the matter we talked about last night,” she said, as soon as they were alone together, “and I am sure that the business goes with the name. As long as you are Madame Rocada, therefore, the business is yours; but when you say you are no longer Rocada, then it is yours no longer.” Perhaps Mademoiselle Laure exaggerated the simplicity of the woman with whom she was dealing. At any rate Audrey looked at her in open-eyed surprise. “I don’t know much about these things,” she said bluntly. “But I think that’s very strange.” “It’s true though. Ask Mr. Candover if it is not.” Audrey hung her head thoughtfully, and then looked up. “No,” she said at last, “I shall not ask him. I shall go straight to a solicitor, and see what he says.” Mademoiselle Laure’s face changed and grew very repellent in its expression. She laughed harshly.