member meeting him
here once?"

"I do indeed."

"You may remember something I told you about him then. Perhaps I ought
not to have told you."

"Never mind that. Yes, I remember perfectly. Has he been persecuting you
again?"

"Ye-yes. Well, no. I haven't seen him for ages, but I live in dread of
seeing him every day. I know, sooner or later, he will come."

She paused. "I wonder if I really could tell you everything."

"Please do, or tell me as much as you care to. I'd like to help you if
you would let me."

She went on in a low voice, rather suggestive, Wyndham thought, of the
confessional: "I was engaged to him once--long ago--he forced me into
it. It began when we were children. He always made me do everything he
wanted. Then--he went away immediately after--for a year. When he came
back--I don't know how it was--I suppose it was because he had been away
so long--but I was stronger. He seemed to have lost his hold over me,
and I--I broke it off."

She looked away from Wyndham as she spoke.

He wondered, "Is she acting all the time? If so, how admirably she does
it! She must be a cleverer woman than I thought. But she isn't a clever
woman. Therefore----" But Audrey went on before he could draw a
conclusion.

"But I know some day he will come back and make it begin all over again,
and I shall have no power. And the thought of it is horrible!"

There was no mistaking the passion in her voice this time. He said to
himself, "This is nature," and he felt the same cold shiver of sympathy
that sometimes ran through him at the performance of some splendid
actress. But before he could presume to sympathise he must judge.

"Do you mind telling me one thing? Had you any graver reasons for
breaking it off than what you have told me?"

"Yes. He drinks."

"Brute! That's enough. But--supposing he didn't drink?"

"It would make no difference. I never cared for him. He thought I did. I
couldn't help that, could I? And then afterwards so many things
happened--I was not the same person. If he had not begun to--do that,
still it would have been impossible. But he won't believe it, or else he
doesn't care. He'll persecute me again, and perhaps make me marry him."

"My dear Miss Craven, he won't do that. People don't do those things in
the nineteenth century. You've only got to state clearly that you won't
have anything to say to him, and he can't do anything. If he tries to,
there are measures that can be taken."

Sh