'And so you decided to yield?'

'I did yield. I felt that if I was to trust him at all, I might as well
trust him fully, and I called at his flat this afternoon alone. He was
evidently astonished to see me at that hour, so I explained to him that
you had closed early for some reason or other.'

'Exactly,' said Hugo.

He insisted on giving me tea. I was treated, in fact, like a princess;
but during tea he said nothing to me that might not have been said
before a roomful of people. After tea he left me for a few moments, in
order, as he said, to give some orders to his servants. Up till then he
had been extremely agitated, and when he returned he was even more
agitated. He walked to and fro in that lovely drawing-room of his--just
as you were doing here not long since. I was a little afraid.'

'Afraid of what?' demanded Hugo.

'I don't know--of him, lest he might do something fatal, irretrievable;
something--I don't know. And then, being alone with him in that palace
of a place! Well, he burst out suddenly into a series of statements
about himself, and about his future, and his intentions, and his
feelings towards me. And these statements were so extraordinary and so
startling that I could not think he had invented them. I believed them,
as I had believed in the sincerity of his threat to kill himself if I
would not listen to him.'

'And what were they--these statements?' Hugo inquired.