"The Mystery of the Yellow Room" Passage

“The young woman in her despair tried to commit suicide. She failed in

this, and was forced to rejoin her aunt in Cincinnati, The old lady was

overjoyed to see her again. She had been anxiously searching for her and

had not dared to tell Monsieur Stangerson of her disappearance. Mathilde

swore her to secrecy, so that her father should not know she had been

away. A month later, Mademoiselle Stangerson returned to her father,

repentant, her heart dead within her, hoping only one thing: that she

would never again see her husband, the horrible Ballmeyer. A report was

spread, a few weeks later, that he was dead, and she now determined

to atone for her disobedience by a life of labour and devotion for her

father. And she kept her word.

All this she had confessed to Robert Darzac, and, believing Ballmeyer

dead, had given herself to the joy of a union with him. But fate had

resuscitated Jean Roussel--the Ballmeyer of her youth. He had

taken steps to let her know that he would never allow her to marry

Darzac--that he still loved her.

Mademoiselle Stangerson never for one moment hesitated to confide in

Monsieur Darzac. She showed him the letter in which Jean Roussel asked

her to recall the first hours of their union in their beautiful and

charming Louisville home. "The presbytery has lost nothing of its charm,

nor the garden its brightness," he had written. The scoundrel pretended

to be rich and claimed the right of taking her back to Louisville. She

had told Darzac that if her father should know of her dishonour, she

would kill herself. Monsieur Darzac had sworn to silence her persecutor,

even if he had to kill him. He was outwitted and would have succumbed

had it not been for the genius of Rouletabille.

Mademoiselle Stangerson was herself helpless in the hands of such a

villain. She had tried to kill him when he had first threatened and then

attacked her in The Yellow Room. She had, unfortunately, failed, and

felt herself condemned to be for ever at the mercy of this unscrupulous

wretch who was continually demanding her presence at clandestine

interviews. When he sent her the letter through the Post Office, asking

her to meet him, she had refused. The result of her refusal was the

tragedy of The Yellow Room. The second time he wrote asking for a

meeting, the letter reaching her in her sick chamber, she had avoided

him by sleeping with her servants. In that letter the scoundrel had

warned her that, since she was too ill to come to him, he would come

to her, and that he would be in her chamber at a particular hour on

a particular night. Knowing that she had everything to fear from

Ballmeyer, she had left her chamber on that night. It was then that the

incident of the "inexplicable gallery" occurred.” (P.208-209)