“You are right, Mr. Hamel,” she said.  “I think that I am more afraid of him than any woman ever was of any man in this world.”

“Then why do you live here?” he protested.  “You must have other relations to whom you could go.  And your brother—­why doesn’t he do something—­go into one of the professions?  He could surely leave easily enough?”

“I will tell you a secret,” she answered calmly.  “Perhaps it will help you to understand.  You know my uncle’s condition.  You know that it was the result of an accident?”

“I have heard so,” he replied gravely.

She clutched at his arm.

“Come,” she said.

Side by side they walked the entire length of the terrace.  When they reached the corner, they were met with a fierce gust of wind.  She battled along, and he followed her.  They were looking inland now.  There were no lights visible—­nothing but dark, chaotic emptiness.  From somewhere below him he could hear the wind in the tree-tops.

“This way,” she directed.  “Be careful.”

They walked to the very edge of the palisading.  It was scarcely more than a couple of feet high.  She pointed downwards.

“Can you see?” she whispered.

By degrees his eyes faintly penetrated the darkness.  It was as though they were looking down a precipice.  The descent was perfectly sheer for nearly a hundred feet.  At the bottom were the pine trees.

“Come here again in the morning,” she whispered.  “You will see then.  I brought you here to show you the place.  It was here that the accident happened.”

“What accident?”

“Mr. Fentolin’s,” she continued.  “It was here that he went over.  He was picked up with both his legs broken.  They never thought that he would live.”

Hamel shivered a little.  As his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he saw more distinctly than ever the sheer fall, the tops of the bending trees below.

“What a horrible thing!” he exclaimed.

“It was more horrible than you know,” she continued, dropping her voice a little, almost whispering in his ear.  “I do not know why I tell you this—­you, a stranger—­but if I do not tell some one, I think that the memory of it will drive me mad.  It was no accident at all.  Mr. Fentolin was thrown over!”

“By whom?” he asked.

She clung to his arm for a moment.

“Ah, don’t ask me!” she begged.  “No one knows.  My uncle gave out, as soon as he was conscious, that it was an accident.”

“That, at any rate, was fine of him,” Hamel declared.

She shivered.