"What was it?" I asked.
"When my father prosecuted your guardian, Jervis Fanshawe, I think he heard something about the poor innocent love story that had been ours. I think Fanshawe poisoned his mind and I believe my father breathed something of his suspicions to Lucas Savell. From that time he began to treat me badly, with little petty acts of tyranny at first, and then with open slights and small degradations, until at last my health broke down. I think he became a little frightened, and at the urgent request of the doctors he took me away on a sea voyage with the child."
"But from that sea voyage you never returned," I reminded her.
"My dear, be patient, and listen," she urged gently. "On that long voyage it seemed to me that life, as I had once hoped to live it, came back to me; in the long watches of the night, when I could not sleep, I thought of you in your prison, and my life seemed a thing shameful and horrible. I remembered your gentleness; even in the prison garb in which I sometimes thought of you, you stood before me always as a king—strong and self-sacrificing and wonderful. Because a man had dared to speak ill of me, you had gone out, without a thought of the consequences, and struck him dead; there was no man I'd ever met who would have done half so much for me."
I thought of a boy who was even then setting out to do the same thing again; I shuddered as I sat there.
"At last one night the thing had become intolerable to me," she went on, in a whisper that grew sharp and eager as she remembered that time. "I made up my mind that I could no longer live the life I was living; I must get away somewhere, and hide myself; I must, if possible, begin again. It seemed to me, my dear, as though your sacrifice had been in vain; I must consecrate what was left of my life to you, and to the memory of you. We were in mid-ocean—but I made up my mind to escape."
"How did you do it?" I asked.
"There was a stewardess on board—a strong, stern, repressed woman, whose confidence I had gained, and who seemed to be deeply interested in me. I told her just so much of my story as was necessary; I swore to her that I could not and would not meet the man whose name I bore again. I told her that I would, if necessary, fling myself into the sea rather than endure his presence any longer. And she showed me a better and a simpler way, yet a harder way to bear."
She sat for a moment or two with her elbows on her knees, leaning forward, and evidently thinking deeply; I did not dare to interrupt her. I stole a hand into hers, and she clasped my hand between her own, and so held it while she went on talking.