A Woman Martyr

by Alice M. Diehl

Then, remembering her beloved, she urged herself to make an effort and return home. Although the downpour beat steadily upon her, upon the boat and the water around, although little runnels trickled coldly down her neck, and her straw hat was already pulp, she went steadily on and on, until at last she was at the boat-house, and had moored the skiff under its friendly shelter.

The rain had given place to hail, so she thought better to wait awhile before walking home. She sat there, wringing the water from her skirts, and wondering what Vansittart would say if he knew her plight, until the clouds parted, watery sunbeams cast a sickly lemon tint upon the river and its banks, and a rainbow began to glow upon the slate-coloured clouds.

Then she stepped from the boat and started to walk across the park. Her clinging garments made locomotion difficult. "What a drowned rat I must look!" she told herself. "What will be the best way of getting to my room without being seen? I know! The side room window!"

"The side room" was a chamber leading from the hall, and conducting by a second door to the offices. It was used for humbler visitors, messengers who waited answers, dressmakers and the like. In the hot weather the window was generally open. "If they have shut it, I must go in by the usual way," she thought.

It was not shut. With a little spring she balanced herself on the sill, and slipped down upon the floor, to find that the room was not empty as she had expected. A slight person in deep mourning, who had been seated, rose and confronted her.

Joan stared at the white, stern, but beautiful face in sick dismay. This was the woman who had given her the flowers--the posy with the strange, awful threat written on the label, when she was about to enter the bridegroom's carriage as she left the church after her wedding.

"I see--you know me," said the girl. She spoke with icy composure. "I have come to speak to you of your danger."

The two looked into each other's eyes unflinchingly--Vera with a cold condemnatory stare; Joan with the apathy of abject despair.

"Come this way, please," she said. Her garments dripped slowly on the polished floor; she glanced at the drops with a curious wonder, then led the way along a passage, and held open a baize door. In another moment the two were shut into Joan's boudoir, and Joan waved the girl that her wretched, so-called husband had loved, towards a chair.

She shook her head, impatiently. "I meant to wait to see you until you were in the dock," she began. "Your whole doings are known, from the first letter you wrote to poor Victor, to the hour I saw you in Haythorn Street, coming out of the house after you had poisoned him and left him to die! I had meant to tell all I knew to the detectives, but they came after me. All is complete--you may be arrested at any moment. Then will come your trial, your condemnation--your hanging. I expect you have dreamt the rope was round your neck; at least, if you have any feeling left in you. Murderess that you are, you have ruined my life, you have killed my dearest love, who loved me, not you--and I was gloating over the idea of your being hanged by the neck till you were dead, when I dreamt of my Victor. I dreamt a shadow--his shadow--bent over me, and said those very words that I thought meant your doom, 'I will repay, saith the Lord!' I awoke, and knew that I was to come and warn you, that you may escape."