d to the officer who knew well who she was and that she
was not one of the condemned, but had followed her husband for love,
and to intercede for him when he would have been ill-treated; and that
the man had allowed her to have her way, but later had demanded as his
reward for yielding to her, that she no longer belong to her husband,
but to him.

Looking off at the far ranges of mountains with steady gaze, she told
of the mountains they had crossed, and the rushing, terrible rivers;
and how, one day, the officer who had been kind only that he might be
more cruel, had determined to force her to obedience, and how he grew
very angry--so angry that when they had come to a trail that was
well-nigh impassable, winding around the side of a mountain, where was
a fearful rushing river far below them, and her baby cried in her
arms for cold and hunger, how he had snatched the child from her and
hurled it over the precipice into the swift water, and how she had
shrieked and struck him and was crazed and remembered no more for
days, except to call continually on God to send down curses on that
officer's head. She told how after that they were held at a certain
station for a long time, but that she was allowed to stay by her
husband only because the officer feared the terrible curses she had
asked of God to descend on that man, that he dared no more touch her.

Then Amalia understood many things better than ever before, and grew
if possible more tender of her mother. She thought how all during that
awful time she had been safe and sheltered in the convent, and her
life guarded; and moreover, she understood why her father had always
treated her mother as if she were higher than the angels and with the
courtesy and gentleness of a knight errant. He had bowed to her
slightest wish, and no wonder her mother thought that when he received
her request to return to her, and give up his hope, he would surely
come to her.

More than ever Amalia feared the days to come if she could in no way
convince her mother that it was not expedient for her father to return
yet. To say again that he was dead she dared not, even if she could
persuade Madam Manovska to believe it; for it seemed to her in that
event that her mother would give up all interest in life, and die of a
broken heart. But from the first she had not accepted the thought of
her husband's death, and held stubbornly to the belief that he had
joined Harry King to find help. He had, i