trying to avoid her direct gaze and, as I did so, I could not help
remarking that she, too, was obviously embarrassed.

Then, as if taking a resolution, she came up to me and looked me
squarely in the face. I moved away, a faint shiver of apprehension
going down my spine.

'Mr. Rawlings,' she said slowly and impressively, 'there is one thing I
want to say regarding your conduct. When you are addressing
photographs, may I ask you to do it with lowered voice, or at all
events in a purely conversational tone?' Then she swept out of the
room, banging the door behind her.

As for me, I was left dazed and struggling to grasp the strange import
of her mystic words. Why this constant reference to the photograph she
had so shamelessly thrust upon me, and which, as a direct hint to her
that I did not desire it, I had replaced in its frame at the first
opportunity?

What had come over the woman? I began to be more than ever convinced
of my former suspicion that her fatal and erratic passion for myself
was beginning to unhinge her mind. I saw that I must lose no time in
bringing about her disillusionment.




CHAPTER XIII

'Henry, do you think William has been looking particularly unhappy