as dressing quickly to go to Mr. Ffolliott."

She stopped for quite a minute, rather as if to recover breath.

"He closed the door behind him and came towards me with the note in his
hand. And I saw in a second the look that always terrifies me, in his
face. He had opened the note and he smoothed out the paper quietly and
said, 'What is this. I could not help it--I turned cold and began to
shiver. I could not imagine what was coming."

"'Is it my note to Mr. Ffolliott?' I asked.

"'Yes, it is your note to Mr. Ffolliott,' and he read it aloud. "Do
not come to the house. I will meet you in Bartyon Wood." That is a nice
note for a man's wife to have written, to be picked up and read by a
stranger, if your confessor is not cautious in the matter of letters
from women----'

"When he begins a thing in that way, you may always know that he has
planned everything--that you can do nothing--I always know. I knew then,
and I knew I was quite white when I answered him:

"'I wrote it in a great hurry, Mrs. Farne is worse. We are going
together to her. I said I would meet him--to save time.'

"He laughed, his awful little laugh, and touched the paper.

"'I have no doubt. And I have no doubt that if other persons saw this,
they would believe it. It is very likely.

"'But you believe it,' I said. 'You know it is true. No one would be so
silly--so silly and wicked as to----' Then I broke down and cried out.
'What do you mean? What could anyone think it meant?' I was so wild that
I felt as if I was going crazy. He clenched my wrist and shook me.

"'Don't think you can play the fool with me,' he said. 'I have been
watching this thing from the first. The first time I leave you alone
with the fellow, I come back to find you have been giving him an
emotional scene. Do you suppose your simpering good spirits and your
imbecile pink cheeks told me nothing? They told me exactly this. I have
waited to come upon it, and here it is. "Do not come to the house--I
will meet you in the wood."'

"That was the unexpected thing. It was no use to argue and try to
explain. I knew he did not believe what he was saying, but he worked
himself into a rage, he accused me of awful things, and called me awful
names in a loud voice, so that he could be heard, until I was dumb and
staggering. All the time, I knew there was a reason, but I could
not tell then what it was. He said at last, that he was going to Mr.
Ffolliott. He said, 'I will meet him in th