was
five years old. They didn't like my lover. We quarrel day and night. I
say they didn't like him because they could not speak his language. They
say he was bad. I fight for him, and run away and marry him----"

Again she paused and drew a deep breath.

"Ah, I was one happy little fool that year! He make good wages on the
docks--a stevedore. They had a strike, and he got to drinking. The baby
came----"

She stopped suddenly.

"You had a little baby, Ella?" the girl asked in a tender whisper.

"Ja--ja," she sobbed--"so sweet, so good--so quiet--so beautiful she was.
I was very happy--like a little girl with a doll--only she laugh and
cry and coo and pull my hair! He stop the drink a little while when she
come, and he got work. And then he begin worse and worse. It seem like
he never loved me any more after the baby. He curse me, he quarrel. He
begin to strike me sometimes. I laugh and cry at first and make up and
try again----"

Again she paused as if for courage to go on, and choked into silence.

"Yes--and then?" the girl asked.

"And then he come home one night wild drunk. He stumble and fall
across the cradle and hurt my baby so she never cry--just lie still and
tremble--her eyes wide open at first and then they droop and close and
she die!

"He laugh and curse and strike me, and I fight him like a tiger. He was
strong--he throw me down on the floor and gouge my eye out with his big
claw----"

"Oh, my God," Mary sobbed.

Ella sprang to her feet and bent over the girl with trembling eagerness.

"You keep my secret, meine liebe?"

"Yes--yes----"

"I never tell a soul on earth what I tell you now--I just eat my heart
out and keep still all the years, I can tell you--ja?"

"Yes, I'll keep it sacred--go on----"

"When I know he gouge my eye out, I go wild. I get my hand on his throat
and choke him still. I drag him to the stairs and throw him head first
all the way down to the bottom. He fall in a heap and lie still. I run
down and drag him to the door. I kick his face and he never move. He was
dead. I kick him again--and again. And then I laugh--I laugh--I laugh in
his dead face--I was so glad I kill him!"

She sank in a paroxysm of sobs on the floor, and the girl touched her
smooth black hair tenderly, strangled with her own emotions.

Ella rose at last and brushed the tears from her hollow cheeks.

"Now, you know, meine liebe! Why I tell you this today, I don't
know--maybe I must! I dream onc