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.