“At this time my husband had got a little work to do.  He came home out of temper one night, and I gave him a warning.  ’Don’t try me too far, Joel, for your own sake,’ was all I said.  It was one of his sober days; and, for the first time, a word from me seemed to have an effect on him.  He looked hard at me for a minute or so.  And then he went and sat down in a corner, and held his peace.

“This was on a Tuesday in the week.  On the Saturday he got paid, and the drinking fit took him again.

“On Friday in the next week I happened to come back late—­having had a good stroke of work to do that day, in the way of cooking a public dinner for a tavern-keeper who knew me.  I found my husband gone, and the bedroom stripped of the furniture which I had put into it.  For the second time he had robbed me of my own property, and had turned it into money to be spent in drink.

“I didn’t say a word.  I stood and looked round the empty room.  What was going on in me I hardly knew myself at the time, and can’t describe now.  All I remember is, that, after a little, I turned about to leave the house.  I knew the places where thy husband was likely to be found; and the devil possessed me to go and find him.  The landlady came out into the passage and tried to stop me.  She was a bigger and a stronger woman than I was.  But I shook her off like a child.  Thinking over it now, I believe she was in no condition to put out her strength.  The sight of me frightened her.

“I found him.  I said—­well, I said what a woman beside herself with fury would be likely to say.  It’s needless to tell how it ended.  He knocked me down.

“After that, there is a spot of darkness like in my memory.  The next thing I can call to mind, is coming back to my senses after some days.  Three of my teeth were knocked out—­but that was not the worst of it.  My head had struck against something in falling, and some part of me (a nerve, I think they said) was injured in such a way as to affect my speech.  I don’t mean that I was downright dumb—­I only mean that, all of a sudden, it had become a labor to me to speak.  A long word was as serious an obstacle as if I was a child again.  They took me to the hospital.  When the medical gentlemen heard what it was, the medical gentlemen came crowding round me.  I appeared to lay hold of their interest, just as a story-book lays hold of the interest of other people.  The upshot of it was, that I might end in being dumb, or I might get my speech again—­the chances were about equal.  Only two things were needful.  One of them was that I should live on good nourishing diet.  The other was, that I should keep my mind easy.

“About the diet it was not possible to decide.  My getting good nourishing food and drink depended on my getting money to buy the same.  As to my mind, there was no difficulty about that. If my husband came back to me, my mind was made up to kill him.