Rachael told her mother the story of her married life from the day she had been left alone with John Levine,—­a story of unimaginable horrors.  Like many cold men to whom the pleasures of the world are, nevertheless, easy, Levine was a voluptuary and cruel.  Had his child been safely born, there would have been no measure in his brutality.  Rachael had watched for her opportunity, and one night when he had been at a state function in Christianstadt, too secure in her apparent apathy to lock her door, she had bribed a servant to drive her to Frederikstadt, and boarded the ship her maid had ascertained was about to leave.  She knew that he would not follow her, for there was one person on earth he feared, and that was Mary Fawcett.  He would not have returned to St. Croix, had his investments been less heavy; but on his estates he was lord, and had no mind that his mother-in-law should set foot on them while he had slaves to hold his gates.

Mary Fawcett listened to the horrid story, at first with a sort of frantic wonder, for of the evil of life she had known nothing; then her clear mind grasped it, her stoicism gave way, and she shrieked and raved in such agony of soul that she had no fear of hell thereafter.  Rachael had to rise from the bed and minister to her, and the terrified blacks ran screaming about the place, believing that their mistress had been cursed.

She grew calm in time, but her face was puckered like an old apple, and her eyes had lost their brilliancy for ever.  And it was days before she realized that her limbs still ached.

Rachael never opened her lips on the subject again.  She went back to bed and clung to her mother and Dr. Hamilton until her child was born.  Then for three months she recognized no one, and Dr. Hamilton, with all his skill, did not venture to say whether or not her mind would live again.

The child was a boy, and as blond as its father.  Mary Fawcett stood its presence in the house for a month, then packed it off to St. Croix.  She received a curt acknowledgment from Levine, and an intimation that she had saved herself much trouble.  As for Rachael, he would have her back when he saw fit.  She wrote an appeal to the Captain-General and he sent her word that the Danes would never bombard Brimstone Hill, and there was no other way by which Levine could get her daughter while one of her friends ruled the Leeward Caribbees.

Many thoughts flitted through the brain of Mary Fawcett during that long vigil.  Her mind for the first time dwelt with kindness, almost with softness, on the memory of her husband.  Beside this awful Dane his shadow was god-like.  He had been high-minded and a gentleman in his worst tantrums, and there was no taint of viciousness in him.  A doubt grew in her brain, grew to such disquieting proportions that she sometimes deserted Rachael abruptly and went out to fatigue herself in the avenue.  Had she done wrong to leave him alone in his old age, to bear,