“I know quite well you’re right,” said she. “But it’s so hard, so very hard.” She paused and appeared to reflect deeply for some moments. Then she went on abruptly: “If I do as you suggest, if I go back, away, without trying to see them again, will you write to me and let me know what they are doing, and how they are?” Her tone was so humble, so imploring, that, absorbed as she was in her own anxieties, suggested by her visitor’s revelations, Audrey felt the tears rising to her eyes. “I will do what I can,” she said earnestly. “But it is so little! For now that I know so much, I shall at once break off acquaintance with him.” The other laughed mockingly. “You may think you will, but you will not,” she said, with confidence. “Once in his net, no one gets away so easily. You will try and you will think you have succeeded; but you will feel the meshes about your feet, and you will be brought back, brought safely back into the net--every time!” The words filled Audrey with unspeakable horror. For even while she would have contradicted, have protested, have scouted the idea presented to her, there rose up in her mind the terrible fear that it was a true one! Had she not tried already more than once to escape from the net, and had she not always been brought back, surely yet so gently that she was hardly aware of the compelling force at all? She burst out into violence, clenching her teeth. “I will escape,” she said. “I will not continue my acquaintance with a man whom I know to be wicked!” The stranger laughed again. “You have only my word for it, you know, the word of a woman who has been declared mad! Better forget what I have said, or disregard it, and go on as if nothing had happened to open your eyes even the least bit. You can do no good by protesting, and may do yourself harm. You little guess how strong the forces are which you would have to fight against.” But there she was wrong. Gradually Audrey’s instincts had been telling her what her visitor now openly confirmed, and the knowledge of the strength of the organisation she would have to contend against was growing every moment more profound. “Where shall you go,” she asked abruptly, “when you leave here? You want me to write to you. Where shall I write to? And how shall I address you?” The visitor replied after a moment’s hesitation; perhaps some lingering doubts of Audrey still had to be overcome or some suspicion as to whether Eugène’s influence might not be strong enough to extract from this beautiful, gentle-mannered woman the information he might want about his hated wife. At last, however, she made up her mind suddenly, and answered:--