lose her in like a
prison. The whole world seemed to have turned into a monstrous place of
punishment. One thing only was needed to complete the anguish of her
spirit, and that was the presence of her husband.

She could not picture the meeting with him. Body and soul recoiled from
the thought. It would not be till the morning; that was her sole comfort.
By the morning this fiery suffering would have somewhat abated. She would
be calmer, more able to face him and hear his defence--if defence there
could be. Somehow she never questioned the truth of the story. She knew
that Tudor had not questioned it either. She knew moreover that had it
been untrue, Piers would have been with her long ago in vehement
indignation and wrath.

No, the thing was true. He was the man who had wrecked her life at its
beginning, and now--now he had wrecked it again. He was the man whose
hands were stained with her husband's blood. He had done the deed in one
of those wild tempests of anger with which she was so familiar. He had
done the deed, possibly unintentionally, but certainly with murderous
impulse; and then deliberately cynically, he had covered it up, and gone
his arrogant way.

He had met her, he had desired her; with a few, quickly-stifled qualms
he had won her, trusting to luck that his sin would never find him out.
And so he had made her his own, his property, his prisoner, the slave of
his pleasure. She was bound for ever to her husband's murderer.

Again body and soul shrank in quivering horror from the thought, and a
wild revolt awoke within her. She could not bear it. She must break free.
The bare memory of his passion sickened her. For the first time in her
life hatred, fiery, intense, kindled within her. The thought of his touch
filled her with a loathing unutterable. He had become horrible to her, a
thing unclean, abominable, whose very proximity was pollution. She felt
as if the blood on his hands had stained her also--the blood of the man
she had once loved. For a space she became like a woman demented. The
thing was too abhorrent to be endured.

And then by slow degrees her brain began to clear again. She grew a
little calmer. Monstrous though he was, he was still human. He was, in a
fashion, at her mercy. He had sinned, but it was in her hands that his
punishment lay.

She was stronger than he. She had always known it. But she must keep her
strength. She must not waste it in futile resentment. She would need it
al