“Next time I came back from sea, I heard of her marriage.  Well, why shouldn’t she marry whom she liked?  Title and money—­who could carry them better than she?  She was born for all that is beautiful and dainty.  I didn’t grieve over her marriage.  I was not such a selfish hound as that.  I just rejoiced that good luck had come her way, and that she had not thrown herself away on a penniless sailor.  That’s how I loved Mary Fraser.

“Well, I never thought to see her again, but last voyage I was promoted, and the new boat was not yet launched, so I had to wait for a couple of months with my people at Sydenham.  One day out in a country lane I met Theresa Wright, her old maid.  She told me all about her, about him, about everything.  I tell you, gentlemen, it nearly drove me mad.  This drunken hound, that he should dare to raise his hand to her, whose boots he was not worthy to lick!  I met Theresa again.  Then I met Mary herself—­and met her again.  Then she would meet me no more.  But the other day I had a notice that I was to start on my voyage within a week, and I determined that I would see her once before I left.  Theresa was always my friend, for she loved Mary and hated this villain almost as much as I did.  From her I learned the ways of the house.  Mary used to sit up reading in her own little room downstairs.  I crept round there last night and scratched at the window.  At first she would not open to me, but in her heart I know that now she loves me, and she could not leave me in the frosty night.  She whispered to me to come round to the big front window, and I found it open before me, so as to let me into the dining-room.  Again I heard from her own lips things that made my blood boil, and again I cursed this brute who mishandled the woman I loved.  Well, gentlemen, I was standing with her just inside the window, in all innocence, as God is my judge, when he rushed like a madman into the room, called her the vilest name that a man could use to a woman, and welted her across the face with the stick he had in his hand.  I had sprung for the poker, and it was a fair fight between us.  See here, on my arm, where his first blow fell.  Then it was my turn, and I went through him as if he had been a rotten pumpkin.  Do you think I was sorry?  Not I!  It was his life or mine, but far more than that, it was his life or hers, for how could I leave her in the power of this madman?  That was how I killed him.  Was I wrong?  Well, then, what would either of you gentlemen have done, if you had been in my position?”

“She had screamed when he struck her, and that brought old Theresa down from the room above.  There was a bottle of wine on the sideboard, and I opened it and poured a little between Mary’s lips, for she was half dead with shock.  Then I took a drop myself.  Theresa was as cool as ice, and it was her plot as much as mine.  We must make it appear that burglars had done the thing.  Theresa kept on repeating our story to her mistress,