She trembled and grew paler, and tears came into her eyes.
“I don’t remember much about it,” she hurriedly answered; “perhaps you will. It was after one of my drinking fits. I was always excitable after them; and they say I sharpened a knife and lay in wait for him for a whole day and night, saying I meant to kill him. I couldn’t have meant that, for I love him dearer than my own life. But when he came he was stabbed, and taken to the Infirmary. They said that I did it, and I suppose it’s true. I don’t remember doing it. He was very badly hurt, and they thought he would die. That’s why I was so long in prison before they tried me. If he had died I should have wished to be hanged, so as to be done with everything. You look frightened. Does it seem horrible for me to say these things, when they are true?”
“They do not sound nice from a woman’s lips,” I gravely replied. “I remember your case now. You hid in the loft of the factory for two days after stabbing him, and it was I who had the hunting for you. I thought it a very bad case at the time, and I remember your husband in Court giving a picture of your domestic life which would have melted a heart of stone. I suppose my plain speaking horrifies you quite as much as yours does me?”
“No; everybody speaks that way, so I suppose I must bear it, though I don’t feel so bad as people think me,” she answered, with a despairing ring in her tones. “If I hadn’t been brought up in a public house, and so learned to drink, I might have been in a very different position. Everybody is against me, and sometimes I feel as if I was against myself.”
“There was a child, too, I think,” I continued. “Didn’t you injure it in some way, or ill-treat it? I forget the particulars now.”
“Its leg was broken,” she answered, with a quiver in her voice, and tears again filling her lustrous eyes. “I think the doctor said he would never walk right if he lived, because it was the thigh that was broken. It was hurt about the head too. Perhaps it fell down the stairs and hurt itself. Some of them believed that I flung it down. I don’t think I could have done that, though I was at the top of the stair when they picked him up. I don’t remember anything about it.”
“And what has become of the child?” I asked in a low tone, not sure whether to feel overwhelmed with horror or pity.
“They told me he was dead too when I came out, but perhaps they’ve told a lie about that too. Perhaps he’s living, and only hidden from me as Hanford has been. That’s more work for you. I have no money, and I must have justice. If he is alive, he is bound to support me; and if he has married that grand lady, he must go to prison for bigamy.”
Broken and lost though she was, she seemed to know the law pretty well, but I thought there was little chance of it coming to an appeal of that kind.
“Who told you that your husband was dead?” I asked.