Ravengar was beside himself with rage.  I gathered after a time that he claimed Camilla as his own.  He said I had stolen her from him.  I couldn’t tell exactly what he was driving at, but I parleyed with him a little until I could get my revolver out of a drawer in my escritoire.  He jumped at me.  I thrust him back without firing, and we stood each of us ready for murder.  I couldn’t say how long that lasted.  Suddenly he glanced across the room, and his eyes faltered, and I became aware that Camilla had entered silently.  I was so startled at her appearance and by the transformation in Ravengar that I let off the revolver involuntarily.  I heard Camilla order him, in a sharp, low voice, to leave instantly.  He defied her for a second, and then went.  Before leaving he stuttered, in a dreadful voice:  ’I shall kill you’—­meaning her.  ‘I may as well hang for one thing as for another.’

I said to Camilla, gasping:  ‘What is it all?  What does it mean?’

She then told me, after confessing that she had caught Ravengar hiding in the dressing-room, and had actually suspected that I had been in league with him against her, that long ago she had by accident seen Ravengar commit a crime.  She would not tell me what crime; she would give me no particulars.  Still, I gathered that, if not actually murder, it was at least homicide.  After that Ravengar had pestered her to marry him—­had even said that he would be content with a purely formal marriage; had offered her enormous sums to agree to his proposal; and had been constantly repulsed by her.  She admitted to me that he had appeared to be violently in love with her, but that his motive in wanting marriage was to prevent her from giving evidence against him.  I asked her why she had not communicated with the police long since, and she replied that nothing would induce her to do that.

‘But,’ I said, ‘he will do his best to kill you.’

She said:  ‘I know it.’

And she said it so solemnly that I became extremely frightened.  I knew Ravengar, and I had marked the tone of his final words; and the more I pondered the more profoundly I was imbued with this one idea:  ’The life of my future wife is not safe.  Nothing can make it safe.’

I urged her to communicate with the police.  She refused absolutely.

‘Then one day you will be killed,’ I said.

She gazed at me, and said:  ’Can’t you hit on some plan to keep me safe for a year?’

I demanded:  ‘Why a year?’

I thought she was thinking of my short shrift.

She said:  ’Because in a year Mr. Ravengar will probably have—­passed away.’

Not another word of explanation would she add.

‘Yes,’ I said; ‘I can hit on a plan.’

And, as a matter of fact, a scheme had suddenly flashed into my head.

She asked me what the scheme was.  And I murmured that it began with our marriage on the following day.  I had in my possession a license which would enable us to go through the ceremony at once.