d, and she became his
enemy. He made a desperate lunge at her and tried to grab his papers
from her. But his body was unco-ordinated; murder was in his brain, but
it could not be transferred to his shaking hands with which he menaced
her.

She was very much stronger than he, and all the stronger now that her
acquired fear of unknown enemies had been laughed away. The thing she
realized most was that he must go to bed, that his wet clothes must come
off for fear they gave him pneumonia; that, even if they were not wet,
they must still come off and be locked up to keep him once again a
prisoner. Only, it seemed, in imprisonment, lay peace. And peace was
certainly not salvation!

As she realized that, all the strength was taken from her, but only for
a moment. She felt that there was something in living from day to day
and trusting that somehow good would come to him; she thought for a mad
moment of being drastic, and breaking his leg to make him an honourable
prisoner, but realized with self-contempt that she was too soft to do
that to him. Instead, she fought him to get his clothes off, and by
shaking him till all his breath went, perhaps saved his reason by
crystallizing his intangible fears of enemies into physical fear of her,
whom he could see and guard against. But he dared not sleep. As soon as
he had ceased to be afraid of her rather hard, very strong hands he
became afraid again of the Germans and Chinks; and, seeing him there, so
weak now, so sick, so shaky she could not shake fear into him any more.

As the night wore on his delusions changed. He was still being
persecuted, but now she was the persecutor. Once he cried out that he
had been drinking sulphuric acid, and his throat and mouth were
completely burnt away, leaving a gaping wound. She made tea for him,
guessing that this was merely a picturesque way of telling her he was
thirsty. But he thought she was poisoning him, and dared not drink the
tea. She had only married him for his money and his position, for his
enemies had told her he was a duke's son. She was a second Mrs.
Maybrick--but this conveyed nothing to newspaperless Marcella. She had
been unfaithful to him many times, he told her: Mr. King, Dutch Frank,
Ole Fred and the Chinese greengrocer from whom she bought granadillas
every day, were the objects of her transferred affections.

Unused to the ravings of delirium she was first wildly indignant and
then coldly despairing; at first she thoug