ied; how
they worshipped me in my old home! "Queen Anne," they always called
me. Well, they are dead now, and pray God they sleep so sound that
they can neither hear nor see. Yes, a year and a half--a year of
happiness, half a year of hell; happiness whilst I did not know you,
hell since I saw your face. What secret spring of wickedness did you
touch in my heart? I never had a thought of wrong before you came. But
when I first set eyes upon your face, I felt some strange change come
over me: I recognized my evil destiny. How you discovered my
fascination, how you led me on to evil, you best know. I am no coward,
I do not wish to excuse myself, but sometimes I think that you have
much to answer for, George. Hark, I hear my baby crying, my beautiful
boy with his father's eyes. Do you know, I believe that the child has
grown afraid of me: it beats at me with its tiny hands. I think that
my very dog dislikes me now. They know me as I am; Nature tells them;
everybody knows me except _him_. He will come in presently from
visiting his sick and poor, and kiss me and call me his sweet wife,
and I shall act the living lie. Oh! God, I cannot bear it much
longer----'

"There is more of the same sort," remarked George, coolly. "It affords
a most interesting study of mental anatomy, but I have no time to read
more of it. We will pass on to another."

Lady Bellamy did not move; she sat trembling a little, her face buried
in her hands.

He took up a second letter and began to read a marked passage.

"'The die is cast, I will come; I can no longer resist your influence;
it grows stronger every day, and now it makes me a murderess, for the
shock will kill him. And yet I am tired of the sameness and smallness
of my life; my mind is too big to be cramped in such narrow fetters.'

"That extract is really very funny," said George, critically. "But
don't look depressed, Anne, I am only going to trouble you with one
more dated a year or so later. Listen.

"'I have several times seen the man you sent me; he is a fool and
contemptible in appearance, and, worst of all, shows signs of falling
in love with me; but, if you wish it, I will go through the marriage
ceremony with him, poor little dupe! You will not marry me yourself,
and I would do more than that to keep near you; indeed, I have no
choice, I _must_ keep near you. I went to the Zoological Gardens the
other day and saw a rattlesnake fed upon a live rabbit; the poor thing
had ample