"The best way to defeat his scheme," she urged, "is to release me."
But at that Madame Estelle leaped to her feet.
"Ah! not that," she cried, "not that! If I distrust him, I distrust you still more. Your pretty face may look sad and sorrowful, and you may declare to me that you will never consent, but I will wait and see. I'll wait until Boris returns and confront you with him. Then perhaps I shall learn the real truth."
Natalie made a little despairing gesture with her hands; argument, she saw, would be useless.
Gathering herself together, Madame blundered, half blind with tears, out of the room, and Natalie with a sinking heart heard the bolts drawn again.
All through the day Estelle sat brooding, sending Natalie's lunch and tea up to her by Michael.
All the evening she still sat and brooded, until she had worked herself up into a hysteria of rage.
It was long after dark when a knock sounded on her door. It was Boris.
"Ah!" she cried, as he entered, "what do you think I have gone through? What do you think I have suffered? What do you think I have found out?"
Boris looked at her in alarm.