Audrey listened with blanching cheeks. This insistence on the one point, the girls, always the two girls, was to her mind more convincing than anything else of the truth of the woman’s story. “I don’t know anything about that,” said Audrey. “They are getting impatient at being left at school, and are always importuning to be taken away. Pamela wants to come to me. But I don’t want her here, and to do him justice, their father seems just as unwilling to bring them away from school as they are anxious to come.” A look of relief came over the poor woman’s face. “You really believe that?” she said eagerly. “I do indeed. I’ve had proof of it. Remember, even bad men are generally good to their own children!” The stranger sighed. “Some are, I know. But if you have received as much ill treatment from a man as I have from my husband, you find it difficult to believe any good of him. Besides----” A new thought seemed to fill her with new horror, and again she looked cautiously round, and lowered her voice still further. “There’s his sister. Even if he were to wish to keep his daughters from harm, his sister is such a wicked woman that, if he were to put them into her care, they would be worse off than ever.” “His sister! Has he a sister?” “A half-sister. A woman without heart or conscience, and with no passion but for money, and no affection for any one but her half-brother. She hated me because I was English, and so were all my ways and all my tastes.” “Wasn’t she English then?” “No, nor he either. They are both of mixed nationality, and speak three or four languages equally well. And each is as clever and as wicked as the other. Do you mean to say you have never met her?” And again both her look and tone grew incredulous. “Never to my knowledge,” said Audrey. “Perhaps she is dead.” The stranger heaved a sigh which Audrey could not but think was one of hope. She gazed long and earnestly at the younger woman. “I’m sorry I said what I did--about your being too beautiful to be good,” she said suddenly. “I think you are good; I think I could trust you! Will you keep an eye on my girls?” Audrey’s face puckered with distress. “There’s nothing I would do more willingly,” said she, “but how am I to do it? He is their father; I can’t interfere with his wishes; it would even do more harm than good for me to tell them the truth about you. The advice I strongly give you is to refrain from trying to see them, since their knowing the whole truth, or even a part of it, could only lead to dissensions, and might perhaps change their father’s feelings towards them, which seem at present to be right and natural ones, to anger and bitterness.” The poor woman’s face grew dark with distress.