He felt sure that she was, so he lay in wait for her. And when Audrey, very pale, very quiet, wearing a thick veil, came quickly out and down the stairs and out into the street, she was met by her husband’s friend, who, raising his hat with a courteous and diffident manner, asked humbly:-- “Won’t you speak to me, Mrs. Angmering? Surely, because you’re unhappy yourself, you shouldn’t make your old friends unhappy!” Audrey stopped, but she did not hold out her hand. In truth she was at war with all the world. With the judge who had sentenced Gerard, the jury who had tried him, the counsel who had led the case against him, the counsel who had failed to defend him successfully; more than all with the relations who had written her letters full of horror at her husband’s supposed misdeeds, accompanied by subdued reminders that, when she left the calm of a Lancashire town for the riot and wickedness of a London life with a London husband, she had only done what she might have expected to lead to misery. “I don’t want to make anybody unhappy,” said she in a low voice. “But it’s true, Mr. Candover, that just now I don’t feel inclined to hold any intercourse with anybody. I want a little--a little time to--to get over it!” “Indeed, I can quite understand that. But for Gerard’s sake you must take care of yourself, you know. You mustn’t fret, for one thing. You mustn’t let him see, when you meet him again, that you’ve allowed fretting to mar your beauty.” She frowned impatiently. What did she care for her looks now Gerard could not see her? She felt that, at that moment, she would have liked to pull out her eyelashes and cut off her hair, and efface the charms which she valued for his sake only. “I’m not going to waste time in fretting. It’s of no use,” said she. “Excuse my asking--what are you going to do?” She hesitated. “I--I don’t quite know--yet.” He looked at his watch. “Look here. I may take the privilege of an old fogey and an old friend, mayn’t I? Let me take you to one of the restaurants--one of the quiet ones,” he went on hastily, as she drew herself up, “where we can talk over the situation, and I may be able to help you to decide upon something.” “Thank you very much, but----” “Come, come, you’ve dined with me often enough before.” “With Gerard, yes. But not without him.” “Well, do you mean to give up your friends altogether? To live the life of a nun?” Audrey had recovered her full faculties, and she answered him promptly and steadily:-- “No. I don’t mean to lead the life of a nun, but the life of a widow,” she said. “While Gerard is in prison I’m going to remain in mourning for him, and when he comes back to me I’m going to--to be alive once more.”