than she feels. If she
makes you think she is unhappy and helpless, she does it on purpose.
She may be unhappy, because to keep secrets is often to court
unhappiness; but she is not helpless at all. Her eyes look helpless;
her mouth never. There is power and will between her teeth."

"Why do you speak of secrets?"

"Because you did. I have no secrets. It is Jenny, my wife, who has
secrets. I tell you this. _She knows all about the red man!_ She is
as deep as hell."

"You mean that she understands what is happening and will not tell
her uncle or you?"

"That is precisely what I mean. She does not care a curse for
Alberto. What is born of hen will scrape--remember that. Her father
had a temper like a fiend and a cousin of her mother was hanged for
murder. These are facts she will not deny. I had them from her
uncle. I am frightened of her and I have disappointed her, because I
am not what she thought and have ceased to covet my ancestral
estates and title."

Such a monstrous picture of Jenny at first bewildered Brendon and
then incensed him. Was it within the bounds of possibility that
after six months of wedded life with this woman, any man living
would utter such an indictment and believe it?

"She is great in her way--much too great for me," said Giuseppe
frankly. "She should have been a Medici or a Borgia; she should have
lived many centuries sooner, before policeman and detective officers
were invented. You stare and think I lie. But I do not lie. I see
very clearly indeed. I look back at the past and the veil is lifted.
I understand much that I did not understand when I was growing blind
with love for her. As for this Robert Redmayne--'Robert the Devil,'
I call him--once I thought that he was a ghost; but he is not a
ghost: he is a live man.

"And presently what will happen if he is not caught and hanged? He
will kill Uncle Alberto and perhaps kill me, too. Then he will run
away with Jenny. And I tell you this, Brendon: the sooner he does
so, if only he leaves me alone, the better pleased I shall be. A
hideous speech? Yes, very hideous indeed; but perfectly true, like
many hideous things."

"Do you honestly expect that I, who know your wife, am going to
believe this grotesque story?"

"I do not mind whether you believe it or no. Feel as savage as you
please. For that matter I feel rather savage myself. There is a new
ferocity creeping into me. If you keep company with a wolf, you will
soon learn to ho