And I did so , wondering much at her manner -- for it had in it a strange tenderness and some sort of hopeless longing . Then she gently put me from the room , and I sat musing by the hall window until night fell darkly -- and a fearsome night it was , of storm and blackness . And I thought how well it was that my Uncle Hugh had not to return in such a tempest . Yet , ere the thought had grown cold , the door opened and he strode down the hall , his cloak drenched and wind-twisted , in one hand a whip , as though he had but then sprung from his horse , in the other what seemed like a crumpled letter . Nor was the night blacker than his face , and he took no heed of me as I ran after him , thinking selfishly of the sweetmeats he had promised to bring me -- but I thought no more of them when I got to the door of the Red Room . Alicia stood by the table , hooded and cloaked as for a journey , but her hood had slipped back , and her face rose from it marble-white , save where her wrathful eyes burned out , with dread and guilt and hatred in their depths , while she had one arm raised as if to thrust him back . As for my uncle , he stood before her and I saw not his face , but his voice was low and terrible , speaking words I understood not then , though long afterwards I came to know their meaning . And he cast foul scorn at her that she should have thought to fly with her lover , and swore that naught should again thwart his vengeance , with other threats , wild and dreadful enough . Yet she said no word until he had done , and then she spoke , but what she said I know not , save that it was full of hatred and defiance and wild accusation , such as a mad woman might have uttered . And she defied him even then to stop her flight , though he told her to cross that threshold would mean her death ; for he was a wronged and desperate man and thought of nothing save his own dishonour . Then she made as if to pass him , but he caught her by her white wrist ; she turned on him with fury , and I saw her right hand reach stealthily out over the table behind her , where lay the dagger . `` Let me go ! '' she hissed . And he said , `` I will not . '' Then she turned herself about and struck at him with the dagger -- and never saw I such a face as was hers at the moment . He fell heavily , yet held her even in death , so that she had to wrench herself free , with a shriek that rings yet in my ears on a night when the wind wails over the rainy moors . She rushed past me unheeding , and fled down the hall like a hunted creature , and I heard the heavy door clang hollowly behind her . As for me , I stood there looking at the dead man , for I could neither move nor speak and was like to have died of horror . And presently I knew nothing , nor did I come to my recollection for many a day , when I lay abed , sick of a fever and more like to die than live . So that when at last I came out from the shadow of death , my Uncle Hugh had been long cold in his grave , and the hue and cry for his guilty wife was well nigh over , since naught had been seen or heard of her since she fled the country with her foreign lover .
When I came rightly XXXXX my remembrance , they questioned me as to what I had seen and heard in the Red Room .
So after at in like past since to until with