"Oh! the relief—now at once—after all these years of silence. Fifteen years. . . . It happened when Rupert was a tiny boy. You see he was a bad man. I found it out almost at once—after a month or two. But I loved him madly—utterly. I did not care about his being bad—that does not matter to a woman—but he set about breaking my heart. It amused him. Margaret was born. He used to terrify me with the things that he would teach her. He said that he would make her as big a devil as he was himself. I prayed God that I might never have another child and then Rupert was born. From that moment my one prayer was that my husband might die.
"At last my opportunity came. He fell ill—dreadful attacks of heart—and one night he had a terrible attack and I held back the medicine that would have saved him. I saw his eyes watching me, pleading for it. I stood and waited . . . he died."
She stopped for a moment—then her words came more slowly: "It was a very little thing—it was not a very bad thing—he was a wicked man . . . but God has punished me and He will punish me until I die. All these years He has pursued me, urging me to confess—I have fought and struggled against it, but at last He has beaten me—He has driven me. . . . Oh! the relief! the relief!"
She looked at him curiously.
"If you did not know, why did I feel that you understood and sympathized? Have you no horror of me now?"
For answer, he bent and kissed her cheek.
"I too am very lonely. I too know what God can do."
Then she clung to him as though she would never let him leave her.