"Ah!" cried M. Felix, and in a sudden frenzy he snatched the snake dagger from the table and hurled it at her. It struck her in her left arm, and she caught it in her right hand. As she held it thus, dazed with pain, for a moment, M. Felix was struck with partial blindness. He saw, through the mist which fell upon him, the dagger with blood dripping from it, and thought that it was Emilia's intention to use it against him. He had a revolver in his bedroom. Blindly he staggered thither, and fell, motionless, into a chair by the side of the bed. The pain of the wound and the horror of the situation deprived Emilia of her senses, and she sank to the ground. How long she remained in that condition she did not know, but when she opened her eyes all was silent. M. Felix was not present. Had he gone to carry out his threat and to bring the police to his aid? The dagger was still in her hand and the wound in her arm was still bleeding. Shudderingly she threw the weapon behind the sideboard, and intent now only on escaping from the shame with which she was threatened, she bound her handkerchief tightly round the wound, and fled down the stairs. Constables Wigg and Nightingale were outside the door as she threw it open, but she scarcely saw them, although she knew that they were the forms of men. Terror lent wings to her feet, and in a moment she was out of sight, flying for her life. _BOOK THIRD_. WHAT BECAME OF M. FELIX, AS RELATED IN THE FIRST PERSON BY ROBERT AGNOLD, ON THE REPORTING STAFF OF THE "EVENING MOON." CHAPTER XLIII. ROBERT AGNOLD TAKES UP THE THREADS OF THE STORY. In setting forth the incidents narrated in Book Second of this story, under its heading "A Life Drama--Links in the Mystery," I have had no occasion to speak of myself, my acquaintance with Emilia beginning after the 16th of January, on which night the Book fitly ends. In what has now to be told, however, I played a not unimportant part, and it is proper, and will be more convenient, that I should narrate what followed in the first person. I think my name, Robert Agnold, has been mentioned only once or twice in these pages, and it is not for the purpose of making myself better known to the public, but simply for the sake of clearness, that I depart from the journalistic method (with which in other circumstances I am very well contented) in what I am about to write. I do so with the full approval of the conductors of the newspaper with which I have the honor to be connected. It is perhaps unnecessary for me to state that in the preparation of Book Second I have been guided both by what I have heard from the lips of its heroine, Emilia herself, and by what subsequently came to my knowledge; but it is as well to state this, in order to prove that I have not drawn upon my imagination. I now take up the threads of the story.