words and things I've heard and seen since
then. That devil's cunning had planned
it all. If he hadn't had Wattie he'd have
failed. I'd have jumped into the river
sooner than I'd have gone. Because there
was something in his face made me more
afraid of him than of the river.

"He said the tide didn't serve to take
us back; that we must go on to the first
village, and drive home from there. It got
dusk: we were past the safe part of the river.
I sat clutching Wattie. There was a shock.
I know I kept hold of Wattie till he was
wrenched from me. His death was murder.
Nothing was accident. It was murder!
There came the cold swirl of water, and then
I knew nothing more till the morning of
the next day. I was in a strange room, a
strange woman sitting beside me. As soon
as I could understand anything, I asked
for Wattie.

"The creature didn't know anything:
she said she would call the gentleman; but
I wouldn't let her. I said I would go to
him. My clothes had been dried, she
helped me to put them on, and helped me
to go down-stairs. I loathed her touch,
even the touch of her eyes; but I couldn't
have done without help, I was so deadly
ill. Graham was at breakfast. He
pretended to be shocked to see me looking
so ill. He tried to be fond and tender.
I would say nothing, and answer
nothing, only asked, 'Where's Wattie?'
He swore to me that Wattie had been sent
safely home. Then, when I said I wished
to go home to him directly, he—-  You
know, nurse, I was such an ignorant fool,
and he always so clever; and just then
what little sense I ever had seemed
benumbed. I felt, I remember, as if my
mind were in a small prison, and knew
nothing of anything outside, of any before
or after. He pretended passionate remorse,
and love, and pity. And he confused me
with shame and perplexity, by representing
what had happened in the most
disastrous light.

"Now, I can't believe in my own
stupidity then. But he managed then to
make me believe that I had no alternative
but to be his wife, or to be pointed out by
the finger of scorn, to lead a shamed life.
He told me that nobody would ever credit
that my having been away from home all
night with him was an innocent accident.

"Nurse, don't you think it strange that
God should let such a weak creature be
left so helpless from no fault of her own?
It was love for Wattie, care for Wattie,
nothing else, Heaven is my witness, that
led me into that villain's power.

"Well, when he'd done talking, I was
even so stupid a fool as to feel something
like gratitude to him for being willing to
marry a girl so disgraced.

"We were married that very morning—
as he had intended we should be. He
wanted to hurry me abroad immediately.
When I insisted that first I would go to
Wattie, or Wattie must come to me, he left
me in anger, and he locked me in. He
turned the key very softly, but I heard the
sound. My brain was, by this time, growing
clearer. What had passed seemed to me
an incredibly bad dream. The thought
that I was his wife, irrevocably his
property, half maddened me.

"I determined I would escape; that,
whatever might come after, I would go to
Wattie. I hadn't much trouble in getting
out of the window. I passed unnoticed
through the garden, which ran down to the
river's edge. I thought I could make my
way home by the river-side path.

"Pushing through some bushes, I
suddenly came upon a group of people—my
husband one of them—standing round
something that lay on the grass. I broke
into their midst, and there lay Wattie, my
dead, drowned, murdered Wattie. I knelt
by him, I lifted my hands and my eyes to
heaven. Words of cursing came to my
lips. I cursed his murderer, my husband,
to whom I had been married that morning."

She stopped and laughed.

"I don't know what happened just after.
I remember I found myself his close-kept
prisoner. Our hatred of each other grew
finely. He was disappointed in finding he
could not get hold of all my money at once,
mine and Wattie's, which came to me. He
took a sort of fiend's pleasure in making
himself as evil a monster as possible in my
eyes. To half kill me with fear was his
favourite pastime; but after awhile I got
too stupid to feel afraid. At times he drank
frightfully—drank till he was mad. His
worst way of torturing me was to talk to me
of the foul horrors of the life he had led and
was leading; if I tried to stop my ears, he
would pull my hands down and hold them.
Sometimes he struck me—not often—he
could do so much worse. It's a nice story,
isn't it, nurse?"

The poor woman to whom she told it
moaned faintly.

"I'll make it short, nurse; I won't tell
you half—only the end. That came at
Homburg. I'm not quite sure if he meant