“I tried, but he was too clever for me. He knew that I would have moved heaven and earth to find my children, that I would have exposed, denounced him, once safely away from his diabolical influence, once free to breathe and to act for myself. For, though I hated him, I feared him too, and dared scarcely move without his permission. I don’t know how I managed to keep firm in refusing to help him. I think now it was his fear that I should break down and blunder that saved me. For I used to feel that, if he had gone on insisting, I should have yielded at last. As it was, I was of no use to him, so he hated me, and again and again I thought he would kill me. And I told his friends so, and that was my undoing. He, with his sweet voice and caressing ways, to attempt to kill me, a tall, strong, powerful woman! The thing was absurd. And then the way was smooth for what he did. He got two doctors to certify that I was insane--one of them believed it, I’m sure, and the other was the sort of flabby man who can be led to believe anything--and I was shut up in a lunatic asylum.” There was a pause, and then she said in a hollow whisper:-- “I’ve been there fourteen years!” “What!” cried Audrey, aghast, incredulous, horror-struck. “Fourteen years,” repeated the woman, “ever since my elder child, Pamela, was four years old. I knew they were told--both of them--that I was dead, and that was all I was allowed to know. Can you wonder that there was no difficulty in believing me insane? But I never was insane, no, not for an hour. Always, always I had the idea in my mind that I must get out, I must find them, I must save them from such a father. But the years went by, and I could never get away. It was in the west country, close to the Welsh border, that I was shut up, and I was out of the world, out of touch with everything. I never got a chance of escape till six months ago, when they thought I had worn out my old longings to be free, and then I came straight to London, and hunted, and hunted, till I found out where Eugène had hidden himself, and the new name by which he was known.” “And what is that?” asked Audrey. “Reginald Candover,” replied the woman quickly. Although she had been prepared for this, Audrey could not hear it without a fresh shudder. “How can I believe all this?” she asked suddenly, turning pale as certain possibilities connected with this terrible discovery occurred to her. “I can’t, I won’t believe it!” The visitor shrugged her shoulders. “Why should you believe it? It is no affair of mine whether you do or not,” she said simply. “All I came here for was to learn something of my children. Pamela sent me your name and address as a friend of theirs, and all I ask of you is to tell me all you can about them. What are they going to do? They are nearly grown up, and want a mother’s care. Who is going to give it them?”