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OU know, then?" The woman who had been called "Gerda" placed both thin hands to her breast and bowed her head. "I do not know how you discovered the truth, but it doesn't matter now; the purpose for my presence here has been taken out of my hands."

"The family have all retired?" Odell drew her toward the library. "Sit down here, please; I shall not detain you long, Mrs. Gael, I think I know your motive for masquerading here, but I should like to hear it confirmed by your own lips. It was in order that you might be revenged in some way upon Farley Drew, was it not?"

Again she bowed her head.

"Do you know all that this man has done to me? For my own folly and unfaithfulness to my husband, I blame no one but myself; and I have paid for it in the loss of all that makes life worth living. He had promised me that if I were divorced he would make me his wife, and I believed him; later he refused to keep that promise, and he was my only refuge, my one hope of even a partial rehabilitation in the estimation of my world." She lifted her tragic eyes and rested them upon the detective's face. "I admit that I was desperate, that I pleaded with him, followed him, lost all sense of pride in my terror of a future 260