"Such and such like were the persuasions and arguments made use of by him. But I had no longer any love for him (if, indeed, I had ever had any)--no, not the least bit! Rather was I frightened of him. His restless manner, his strange jerky movements, a peculiar twitching of one corner of his mouth, and an indescribable something which flashed out at me every now and again from the sombre depths of his eyes, made me timorous of him and involuntarily caused me to shrink from too close a proximity to him. It seemed to me then--as, with still more reason, it seems clear to me now--that he had never thoroughly recovered from the effects of his sunstroke, and that, to a certain extent, he could hardly be held accountable for what he might either say or do. "I will not weary you with the details of all that passed between us. I was afraid to take too indignant a tone with him, lest my doing so should provoke an explosion of passion on his part, which might end in a way disastrous to one or both of us. There was, however, no lack of firmness in the way in which I gave him to understand that between himself and me all was at an end for ever, and that that must be our last interview. He pleaded and urged me to reconsider my determination, but to no purpose. Finally, finding that I had only half-an-hour left in which to get home and change my dress before dinner, I was compelled to leave him somewhat abruptly. 'Shake hands before I go, and let us part as friends,' I said. "He stared at my extended hand for a moment or two with bent brows. Then, with a strange harsh laugh which seemed to me to have an echo of insanity in it, he said: 'Part as friends--you and I? Never! We are lovers, not friends. You are mine and I am yours. Not even death shall have power to divide us.' Then, pulling his hat over his brows and turning quickly on his heel, he flung me a parting look over his shoulder. 'It is _au revoir_, and not farewell,' he exclaimed with a wave of his hand, and so strode swiftly away through the gloaming." CHAPTER XIV. THE STATEMENT CONCLUDED. "For the next few days there was an uneasy feeling at my heart, a sense of impending misfortune, of which I could not rid myself. 'It is _au revoir_,' he had said, and that despite my telling him that on no account would I consent to meet him again. What motive was at the bottom of his persistence? When and how would he attempt to force his presence on me? For three days I never left the precincts of the house and garden. "I now come to the fatal 18th of September. About ten o'clock on the morning of that day, after breakfast was over and my husband had shut himself up in his office, a note was brought me with word that the messenger had been instructed to wait for an answer. Even before I opened it I guessed but too surely who it was from. As nearly as I can recollect, it ran almost word for word as under: