"'You _must_ see me once more and to-day. I have made up my mind to leave England in less than a week from now, probably never to return; but I cannot go without bidding you farewell. Besides, I have some letters of yours, written years ago, which I will give you when I see you. Should you refuse me this last request, you must abide by the consequences. To-morrow at daybreak my body will be found in front of Loudwater House. There will be a bullet in my brain and on my lifeless heart will be found your letters.--E. W.' "Such a message, coming from a man whom I believed to be half demented, was enough to frighten any woman, and it frightened me. I scribbled a line in answer, saying when and where I would meet him. "All that day I was a prey to the most dismal forebodings. It was Friday. My husband, who was as regular in his habits as a piece of clockwork, made an invariable point of leaving home punctually at eight o'clock every Tuesday and Friday evening, in order to make one at a rubber of whist at the house of his friend, Mr. Arbour. Being thus aware that from eight till half-past ten my time would be at my own disposal, and being unwilling to meet Evan again by daylight in the Ladies' Walk, from fear lest the fact of my doing so should somehow reach my husband's ears, in my reply to him I had named nine o'clock as the time, and the corner of the graveyard of St. Mary's Church (a lonely spot at that hour and not more than three hundred yards from Loudwater House) as our place of meeting. "I had fully made up my mind that this our last interview should be as brief a one as possible. I was morbidly anxious to regain possession of my letters. Unless I did so there was no knowing into whose hands they might fall nor what use might be made of them. And then for Evan Wildash to have committed suicide at the door of my husband's house would have been a dreadful thing indeed! "The clock struck eight as my husband was putting on his overcoat in the hall. I tied a muffler round his throat, and at the door he kissed me, as he always did, even if he were not going to be more than an hour away. Alas and alas! how little did I dream that it was the last time he would ever press his lips to mine! "After he was gone I scarcely blow how the time passed till nine o'clock. As I look back in memory, everything that happened that night after my husband's departure seems as far removed from reality as is the recollection of some hideous nightmare. It is enough to say that I was at the corner of the churchyard within five minutes of the appointed hour, where I found Evan already waiting for me.