“And I,” retorted the Frenchwoman, always using her native language, and speaking fast and with determination, “have a duty to do in protecting you from your own folly. Look here, Madame. I knew when I went out that something would happen to you. You looked as white as a ghost, you were trembling, and on the verge of tears. The worry and fatigue of the busy day, during which you have eaten and drunk nothing, has made you ill. I see the marks of tears upon your face; your hair is in disorder; your hat is not pinned on properly. You are not yourself. I did not like to leave you, and I wish to Heaven I had not done so. You are nervous, unstrung. Come across the road with me, to the confectioner’s opposite. You shall drink a glass of wine and swallow a mouthful of food, and then we will come back together.” “Back! Oh, no, no,” cried Audrey, shuddering. The reaction after intense excitement had set in, and she was weak, tremulous and almost hysterical. Still, with all this, she knew what she had to do, what she must do. “Well,” said Mademoiselle Laure, speaking with more kindliness as her companion showed signs of increasing weakness, “will you promise me to stay quietly at the shop while I go for a doctor?” “A doctor! Oh, yes, yes,” said Audrey. “Come then, quickly. I’m afraid of your fainting on the way.” Audrey shook her head. Supported by her companion’s arm, she was now outside, and the fresh air of the evening revived her. They were only just in time, for the shop opposite was closing. They begged permission to enter, and Audrey drank a glass of wine and obediently tried, though she did not succeed in the attempt, to eat a biscuit. For on no other terms would Mademoiselle Laure consent to leave her. “I will be back, Madame,” said the Frenchwoman, with an encouraging smile, as she went quickly to the door, “in five minutes. There is a doctor round the corner. I will fetch him. Wait for me.” Audrey was indeed thankful to have the task of taking the necessary steps transferred to the shoulders of another. At first, in the dazed state which succeeded her first white heat of excitement, she had almost let herself be persuaded by the Frenchwoman into wondering whether she had not been the victim of her own imagination. But before Mademoiselle Laure left her, she had recovered her wits, and recognised that, in fetching a doctor, which was, after all, the most sensible thing that could be done, the woman was acknowledging the fact that there was something in what her employer had said. The time seemed very long while she waited, but she dared not go back alone to the showrooms, and she now realised that it was not her place to send for the police, but the doctor’s. The woman in charge of the shop grew impatient too, and they both watched the clock until five, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour, twenty minutes had passed.