"In a word, Charlie," broke in Fanshawe excitedly, "there's a chance for you to get back a little payment for what you have suffered—to pay off old scores—to get a little cheap revenge. Don't stare at me like that; pull your wits together, and listen."
"To pay off old scores? Revenge?" I stared at him, wondering if he knew what I had seen in that old place of my dreams—wondering what he would say next.
"You have served a long term of imprisonment—your life has been broken and spoilt and ruined," went on the man at the table, setting my guardian aside. "Naturally you hate those who have drawn you into that; naturally your mind is filled with the desire to get even with them—to settle that old account."
"I don't understand," I murmured, looking from one to the other.
Jervis Fanshawe seized my arm, and shook me fiercely. "Years ago you suffered, like a fool, for the sake of a woman; she cared nothing for you, and married another man. Do you remember that?"
"Yes. Her name was Barbara," I replied slowly.
Fanshawe turned to the stranger. "You see he remembers something," he said. Then he turned again impatiently to me. "I have already told you that a new Barbara has sprung up in her place—a child—a girl."
Glancing at the face of the stranger at the table, I decided to hide my knowledge of what I had seen; I said nothing. Perhaps here I was to be shown the way to do what was in my mind; perhaps I was to be helped, as I had never expected to be helped at all.
"You understand, Avaline," went on the stranger, in his deadly voice, "that I take an interest in this new Barbara, who is like the Barbara you so mistakenly loved twenty years ago. In other words, for her own sake it is necessary that I should see much of her—communicate with her often. That is difficult without a third person, because the lady herself is a little obdurate. Do you follow me?"
"Yes," I replied, looking at him for a moment, and then turning to my guardian. "I begin to understand."