was one more effort I could make, and I made it. I went next to the
man whom I am to marry. I implored him to release me from my promise.
He refused. I declared I would break my engagement. He showed me
letters from his sisters, letters from his brothers, and his dear
friends--all entreating him to think again before he made me his wife;
all repeating reports of me in Paris, Vienna, and London, which are so
many vile lies. "If you refuse to marry me," he said, "you admit that
these reports are true--you admit that you are afraid to face society
in the character of my wife." What could I answer? There was no
contradicting him--he was plainly right: if I persisted in my refusal,
the utter destruction of my reputation would be the result. I
consented to let the wedding take place as we had arranged it--and left
him. The night has passed. I am here, with my fixed conviction--that
innocent woman is ordained to have a fatal influence over my life. I
am here with my one question to put, to the one man who can answer it.
For the last time, sir, what am I--a demon who has seen the avenging
angel? or only a poor mad woman, misled by the delusion of a deranged
mind?'

Doctor Wybrow rose from his chair, determined to close the interview.

He was strongly and painfully impressed by what he had heard. The
longer he had listened to her, the more irresistibly the conviction of
the woman's wickedness had forced itself on him. He tried vainly to
think of her as a person to be pitied--a person with a morbidly
sensitive imagination, conscious of the capacities for evil which lie
dormant in us all, and striving earnestly to open her heart to the
counter-influence of her own better nature; the effort was beyond him.
A perverse instinct in him said, as if in words, Beware how you believe
in her!

'I have already given you my opinion,' he said. 'There is no sign of
your intellect being deranged, or being likely to be deranged, that
medical science can discover--as I understand it. As for the
impressions you have confided to me, I can only say that yours is a
case (as I venture to think) for spiritual rather than for medical
advice. Of one thing be assured: what you have said to me in this room
shall not pass out of it. Your confession is safe in my keeping.'

She heard him, with a certain dogged resignation, to the end.

'Is that all?' she asked.

'That is all,' he answered.

She put a little paper packet of money on the table. 'Than