my foot on
it."

The feeling that I was alone in this great gaunt house with a woman who
was waiting and watching to do me a mischief, that she might step into
my shoes, was preying upon my health and spirits.

Sometimes I had sensations of faintness and exhaustion for which I could
not account. Looking into my glass in the morning, I saw that my nose
was becoming pinched, my cheeks thin, and my whole face not merely pale,
but grey.

Alma saw these changes in my appearance, and in the over-sweet tones of
her succulent voice she constantly offered me her sympathy. I always
declined it, protesting that I was perfectly well, but none the less I
shrank within myself and became more and more unhappy.

So fierce a strain could not last very long, and the climax came about
three weeks after my husband had left for London.

I was rising from breakfast with Alma and her mother when I was suddenly
seized with giddiness, and, after staggering for a moment, I fainted
right away.

On recovering consciousness I found myself stretched out on the floor
with Alma and her mother leaning over me.

Never to the last hour of my life shall I forget the look in Alma's eyes
as I opened my own. With her upper lip sucked in and her lower one
slightly set forward she was giving her mother a quick side-glance of
evil triumph.

I was overwhelmed with confusion. I thought I might have been speaking
as I was coming to, mentioning a name perhaps, out of that dim and
sacred chamber of the unconscious soul into which God alone should see.
I noticed, too, that my bodice had been unhooked at the back so as to
leave it loose over my bosom.

As soon as Alma saw that my eyes were open, she put her arm under my
head and began to pour out a flood of honeyed words into my ears.

"My dear, sweet darling," she said, "you scared us to death. We must
send for a doctor immediately--your own doctor, you know."

I tried to say there was no necessity, but she would not listen.

"Such a seizure may be of no consequence, my love. I trust it isn't. But
on the other hand, it may be a serious matter, and it is my duty,
dearest, my duty to your husband, to discover the cause of it."

I knew quite well what Alma was thinking of, yet I could not say more
without strengthening her suspicions, so I asked for Price, who helped
me up to my room, where I sat on the edge of the bed while she gave me
brandy and other restoratives.

That was the beginning of the end