The nurse, meanwhile, not knowing all that was passing in the mind of the other woman, and guessing only that there was trouble in store, at once took steps to remove her charge out of harm’s way. Audrey could not hear what she said, but knew that she was suggesting that he should go indoors. For a few moments he seemed to pay no heed to her words, but presently, with a petulant frown, as if loth to be disturbed, he allowed her to help him to his feet, and went slowly, leaning on her strong arm, in the direction of the angle of the house, round which they both disappeared. Audrey, still less than half possessed of her faculties, watched them to the last, and then, stepping back upon the gravel of the drive, tried to take stock of her strange position. As to Gerard’s presence in his uncle’s house, the fact was so amazing that her brain reeled under it. Lord Clanfield had never once come forward, since his nephew’s marriage, with so much as a kind word to him or his young wife. During all the terrible time of waiting for the trial, not a word had reached his nephew either of reproach, advice or sympathy. Both young husband and young wife had taken it for granted that they were looked upon as effaced, degraded, unworthy of any notice from the august head of the family. And, proud as well as miserable, they had accepted the situation without a protest. Now, however, it was clear that Lord Clanfield had interested himself on behalf of his unlucky nephew, and the amazing thing was to find that he had apparently obtained the young man’s release so quietly that not a word of it had got into the papers, or to the knowledge of Gerard’s own wife! And then, with startling force, the truth flashed upon Audrey that, even if it had been desired to let her know of her husband’s release, there would have been no means of doing so. For, anxious to hide her head from all the world, to sink her identity and be forgotten, she had disappeared from sight as Audrey Angmering, to reappear as Madame Rocada. And then the full meaning of her position became clear to her. She was coming to see Lord Clanfield in the character by which he knew and suspected her, at the very moment when it was above all things necessary that he should have the best possible opinion of her in the character of his nephew’s wife! What would he say, what would he think when he learned the truth of her double identity? If he had been severe in his judgment before, what would he be now? Although she could now conclusively prove to him--at least so she believed--that she could not be the White Countess of evil memory, what would he say to her having taken upon herself the invidious name, and still more invidious position, of the apparently too well-known Madame Rocada? As these thoughts chased each other through her bewildered mind, the unfortunate woman felt a numb despair creeping over her. She dared not meet Lord Clanfield now, she dared not try to see Gerard.