“You forgot soon, sooner than I. I can see the whole scene yet; my horrible husband holding me closer, closer still; the steely glitter of the blade as it touched my breast; you on the rock thirty feet above, gazing with eyes that are fixed--oh, but fixed! [she closed her own as she spoke, with a flicker like the instantaneous shutter of a camera] and next, without warning, with a sudden bound you leapt the distance between us, hurled, with a strength that in your shattered state seemed almost supernatural, my would-be executioner into the sea with one hand, while you supported my half-fainting form with the other, and then strode away up the cliff like one in a dream. Surely you remember?” Frank shook his head; he had no recollection whatever of the incident. That this should be so will not surprise the reader, who is already aware that he was subject, under certain mental conditions, to hypnotic trances. In one of them he had, as we know, destroyed a life; in another he had preserved one--with an equal lack of volition of consciousness in either case. Even now he could not bring himself to credit her account, any more than he could affect a decent degree of satisfaction at so untimely a resuscitation. Still, there she stood, alive--whoever had rescued her; and it occurred to him presently that he might at least profit by the fact to obtain some light upon a point which had cost him several anxious thoughts of late. Had she, or had she not, written that mysterious letter from Pearson’s Row? If she had, could she indeed prove that Fenella was guiltless of Count de Mürger’s blood? Despite his intrinsic loyalty to his wife, he could not help preferring that her fair little hand should be unstained even by a justifiable homicide. It was weakness, no doubt, but man is built up of prejudices which can neither be defended nor overcome. “Lucille,” he said brokenly, “you have not treated me altogether well; you have done your best to keep my wife and me apart; you have wantonly abducted my only son, my little Ronny; you have had me shut up in a lunatic asylum; I strongly suspect that you know more than you should about the fire which occasioned the total loss of the _Danic_, and all but a small percentage of her crew and passengers--and yet--and yet, Lucille, I cannot but think that you still retain a lingering spark of true womanliness somewhere, in spite of all! By that spark, I adjure you solemnly, to tell me, as you hope for mercy, whether you did or did not write that letter signed ‘One who knows the truth’?” “I did,” she answered, “I _do_ know it. I have come here with the full intention of telling it.” “And you can clear Fenella?” asked Frank. “Then I forgive you freely all the wrong you have done--only speak, Lucille, tell me all at once, keep me no longer in suspense!” “Wait,” she said calmly and almost soothingly, “are you quite sure that you can bear to know the truth?”