Then, so quickly that it seemed all to take place in the twinkling of an eye, there came a rapid step in the inner room, a hand dragged the white-clad woman roughly away, and at the same time and by the same movement the curtain was drawn across the opening between the rooms, shutting Audrey out into the twilight of the darkened room. Then she heard the woman’s voice, savage, passionate, full of an emotion so strong that it seemed to strangle her, weak and ill as she evidently was. “Madame Rocada! Madame Rocada!” she cried, gasping out the name in withering tones, hoarse and broken, yet eloquent of rage and scorn. “Let me see her, let me speak to her, let me see what she has to say for herself. Do you think you can stop me, you!” Audrey, bewildered and alarmed, wondering who it was that had seized the stranger and dragged her away from the door, crept close to the curtain to learn more of this intrusion and the cause. She had fancied herself alone in the long suite of rooms; for Marie Laure, who slept on the premises in a tiny room at the back, had gone out to do some shopping, and it was in her absence that poor Audrey, broken down and miserable, had indulged in the fit of tears which had been so strangely interrupted. Whose then was the hand that had seized the stranger? A strong one it must have been, to do so much so quickly! Surely, thought Audrey, it must be the hand of a man. She crept nearer and nearer to the curtain, making ready to pull it sharply back, and to take the two persons within by surprise. But even as she advanced, she heard by the fainter sound of the woman’s voice that she was being drawn away, and that she was being gagged. The last words that Audrey caught sounded to her listening ears like the calling of a man by his name:-- “Oh, Eugène, Eugène!” A chill seized Audrey, and she drew back, frightened, asking herself in a wild impulse of suspicion and dread whether this “Eugène” were some evil genius, the same that had cast his blighting hand upon the fate of Gerard and herself? Then she heard a door shut, and peering through behind the portière into the inner room, she saw that no one was there. The building of which this first floor formed a part had been extended at the back, and behind this second large showroom there were two or three smaller rooms, one of which was that of Mademoiselle Laure, and another a private fitting-room. It was this room the door of which Audrey had heard close, and trying it, she now found that it was locked. She heard voices within, subdued, angry, the whispering voices of a man and a woman, speaking some language which Audrey could not understand. She knocked, but there was no reply.