have been intolerably repellent to me, and I went.  I found her in a mad passion of fury.  Jack had refused to see her or to answer her letters, and she had sent for me, that I might give him her message,—­tell him that he belonged to her and her only, and that he never should marry another woman.  Angry at my interference, Jack disdained even to repudiate her claims, only sending back a threat of appealing to the police if she ventured upon any further annoyance.  I wrote as she told me, and she emphasized my silence on the subject by writing back to me a more definite and explicit assertion of her rights.  Beyond that for some weeks she made no sign.  I have no doubt that she had means of keeping watch upon both his movements and mine; and during that time, as she relinquished gradually all hopes of inducing him to abandon his purpose, she was being driven to her last despairing resolve.

“Later, when all was over, Jack told me the story of that spring and summer.  He told me how, when he found me immovable on the subject, he had resolved to stop the marriage somehow through Delia herself.  He had made her acquaintance, and sought her society frequently.  She had taken a fancy to him, and he admitted that he had availed himself of this fact to increase his intimacy with her, and, as he hoped ultimately, his power over her.  But he was not conscious of ever having varied in his manner towards her of contemptuous indifference.  This contradictory behavior,—­his being constantly near her, yet always beyond her reach,—­was probably the very thing which excited her fancy into passion, the one strong passion of the poor woman’s life.  Then came his deliberate demand that she should by her own act unmask herself in my sight.  The unfortunate woman tried to bargain for some proof of affection in return, and on this occasion had first openly declared her feelings towards him.  He did not believe her; he refused her terms; but when as her payment she asked for the ring which was so especially associated with himself, he agreed to give it to her.  Otherwise hoping, no doubt against hope, dreading above all things a quarrel and final separation, she submitted unconditionally.  And from the time of that evening, when Legard and I had overheard her parting words, Jack never saw her again until the last and final catastrophe.

“It was in July.  My parents had returned to England, but had come straight on here.  Jack and I were dining together with Lady Sylvia at her father’s house—­her brother, young Grey, making the fourth at dinner.  I had arranged to go to a party with your mother, and I told the servants that a lady would call for me early in the evening.  The house stood in Park Lane, and after dinner we all went out on to the broad balcony which opened from the drawing-room.  There was a strong wind blowing that night, and I remember well the vague, disquieted feeling of unreality that possessed me,—­ sweeping through me, as it were, with each gust of