say, 'an' nobody but silly me to blyme! It would 'ave lighted up a 'appy
'ome if I 'adn't been a barmy idiot. It would 'ave showed me the face of
my 'usband leanin' to kiss me in our blessed marriage-bed, an' my baby
smilin' in its cradle-sleep 'ard by.... Oh!--Oh!"--She choked and clutched
her bosom, and her voice rose in the throaty screech of incipient
hysteria--"An' I've left my own sweet, unweaned boy to come and say these
words to you!... An' the darlin' darlin' fightin' with the bottle they're
tryin' to give 'im, and roarin' for 'is mam.... And my breasts as 'ard as
stones, an' throbbin'!... Gawd 'elp me!" She panted and fought and choked,
striving for speech.

"Keep your hair on!" advised W. Keyse in a hoarse whisper. She turned on
him like a tigress, her eyes flaming under her straightened fringe.

"Keep yours! I've come to speak, and speak I mean to--for the sake of the
best man Gawd's made for a 'undred years. Bar one, you says, but bar none,
says I, an' charnce it! Since the day 'e stood up for you in that Dutch
saloon-bar at Gueldersdorp, what is there we don't owe to 'im--you and me,
and all the blooming crew of us? And because 'e'll tyke no thanks, 'e gits
ingratitude--the dirtiest egg the Devil ever hatched!"

"Cripps!" gasped W. Keyse, awe-stricken by this lofty flight of rhetoric.
Ignoring him, she pursued her way.

"You're a beautiful young lydy"--her tone softened from its strenuous
pitch--"wot 'ave 'ad a disappyntment, like many of us 'ave at the start.
You'd set your 'art on Another One. 'E got killed, an' you married the
Doctor--but it's never bin no real marriage. You've ate 'is bread, as the
sayin' is, an' give 'im a stone. An' e's beat 'is pore 'art to bloody rags
agynst it--d'y after d'y, an' night after night! I seen it, I tell you!"
she shrilled--"I seen it wiv me own eyes! You pretty, silly kid! Don't you
know wot 'arm you're doing? You crooil byby! do you reckon Gawd gave you
the man to torture an' break an' spoil?"

A hand, imperatively clapped over the mouth of Mrs. W. Keyse, stemmed the
torrent of her eloquence.

"Dry up! You've said enough," ordered her spouse.

"Do not stop her!" Lynette said, without removing her fascinated eyes from
the Pythoness. "Let her tell me everything that she has seen and knows."

"I seen the Doctor--many, many times," the woman went on, as W. Keyse
reluctantly ungagged her, "watchin' Keyse and me in our poor 'ome-life
together--with the eyes of a sta