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.
“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!”