"I now come to the night of the Hunt Ball. For some days previously I had seen or heard nothing of Henshaw, and had even begun to hope that something might have happened to make the man abandon his line of conduct. I might have known him better. To my intense annoyance and dismay I saw him come into the ballroom with all the hateful assurance that was so familiar to me. I could not well escape, seeing that I was acting as hostess. For a while he, beyond a formal greeting, let me alone. But I felt what was surely coming, and it was almost a relief when he took an opportunity of asking for a dance. "He must have seen the hate in my eyes as in my hesitation they met his, for he said with a forced laugh, 'You need not do violence to your feelings by dancing with me, Miss Morriston, if you don't care to, but there is something I must say to you. Let us come out of the crowd to where we shall not be overheard.' "I had never felt so madly furious with the man as at that moment; and it was with a reckless desire to tell him in strong language my opinion of his tactics, to insult him, if that were possible, to declare that I would die rather than yield to him, that I led the way to the tower. My desire to get out of the crowd was even greater than his, for a mad hope possessed me that in some desperate way I might bring our relations to a final issue. "We went into the sitting-out room. 'Some one will be coming in here,' he objected. 'Is there a room upstairs where we can talk?' "'There is a room up there,' I answered, as steadily as my indignation would let me, and unheeding the idea of compromising myself I went up the dark staircase in front of him. Naturally the idea that our stormy interview was to have a witness would have been the last thing to enter my mind; it never occurred to me to make sure no one was already in the room when we entered it. "You know what happened, Mr. Gifford, so I need not go through that. The man showed himself the cowardly bully that he was. Somehow up there alone with him, as at least I thought, in the dark, my courage gave way, and it was only when the man sought in his vehemence to take hold of me that anger and disgust cast out fear. It was quite by accident that I touched and caught up the chisel lying on the window-sill. As the man's hand sought me it struck the edge of the chisel, and got a wound; that must have been how the blood came upon my dress. He seized my arm, and after a struggle wrenched the implement away. But I never struck him with it, far from giving him his death-blow. The chisel was never in my hand afterwards. When I rushed for the door in a sudden panic, for, knowing that I had hurt him, I believed the man in his rage might be capable of anything, and when in springing after me he stumbled and fell, the chisel must have been held by him edge upwards, and so pierced him to his death." "That, I am certain now," Gifford said, "is what must have happened."