“Do you mean to murder me?”

“Prob’ly.  But not till I’ve ’ad the truth—­and I’ll ’aarve it to the last word, if I tear it out o’ yer boosum.”

“You’ll kill me if I tell you.”

“See that winder!  That’s yer road—­head first—­if you try to lie to me.”

Then she told him the whole sickening story of her relations with Mr. Barradine.  He had debauched her innocence when she was quite a young girl; she had continued to be one of his many mistresses for several years; then he grew tired of her, and, his attentions gradually ceasing, he had left her quite free to do what she pleased.  She had never liked him, had always feared him.  The long intermittent thraldom to his power had been an abomination to her, and it was martyrdom to return to him.

“Only to save you, Will.  And he wouldn’t help unless I done it.  It was as much a sacrifice for you as if I’d been hung, drawn, and quartered for your sake.”

“And why did you sacrifice yourself in the beginning, before ever you’d seen my face?”

“Auntie made me.  It was Auntie’s fault, not mine.  I told her I was afraid of him.”

“Your aunt had been that gait with him herself, in her time?”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“Yes, I twigged that—­and then the mealy-mouthed, filthy hag came over me.  I on’y guessed, but you knew.  Answer me;” and his grip tightened on her throat, and he shook her.  “Answer.”

“Oh, I suppose so.”

“And that cousin—­the one he paid for in foreign parts?”

“I suppose so.”

“Those rooms at the Cottage.  They were furnished and set out for you and him to take your pleasure.”

“He used them for other women—­once or twice.”

“What other women?”

“Girls from London.”

As he questioned her and listened to her answers his passion took a rhythm, upward and downward, from blind wrath to black sorrow; and it seemed that the points reached by the rising curves were becoming less high, while the descending curves went lower and lower, through sorrow into shame, and still down, to fathomless depths of despair.  He had heard all that it was necessary to hear.  His life that he had thought marvelous and splendid was ridiculous and pitiful; what he had fancied to be success was failure; all that he had been proud of as being gained by his own merit had been brought to him by his wife’s disgrace.  What more could he learn?

Yet he went on questioning her.

She swore that she had loved him, that she had quite done with the other when she married him, had been true to him in thought and deed ever since their marriage.  But she had been tempted two or three times, through her aunt.  Mr. Barradine had desired that she should understand with what affection he always regarded her, and he invited her to meet him; and it was the knowledge that he had come to covet her again that made her sure she could get him to do anything for her.  At the same time the knowledge terrified her; and when Dale’s trouble began, and things with him seemed to be going from bad to worse, she felt as if a sort of waking nightmare was drawing nearer and nearer.