g floats over her
red hair like smoke over a fire.

I know nothing whatever about her. She is as reserved about her own
concerns as I am about mine. Yet I feel as though during this hour of
intense fear and agitation I had seen into the depths of her soul. I
understand her, because we are both women. She suffers from the eternal
unrest of the blood.

She has had a shock to her inmost feelings. At some time or other she
has been so deeply wounded that she cannot live again in peace.

She and I have so much in common that we might be blood-relations. But
we ought not to live under the same roof as mistress and servant.

* * * * *

Gradually the fog is dispersing, and the lights burn brighter. I seem to
follow Jeanne's dreams as they pass beneath her brow. Her mouth has
fallen a little open, as if she were dead. Every moment she starts up;
but when she sees me she smiles and drops off again. Good heavens, how
utterly exhausted she seems after these hours of fear!

But somebody _is_ there! Yes ... outside ... there between the trees ...
I see somebody coming....

It is only Torp, with her lantern, and the dressmaker from the
neighbouring village. The moment she opened the basement door and I
heard her voice I felt quite myself again.

* * * * *

We have eaten ravenously, like wolves. For the first time Jeanne sat at
table with me and shared my meal. For the first and probably for the
last time. Torp opened her eyes very wide, but she was careful to make
no observations.

My fit of madness to-night has taught me that the sooner I have a man of
some kind to protect the house the better.

* * * * *

Jeanne has confided in me. She was too upset to sleep, and came knocking
at my bedroom door, asking if she might come in. I gave her permission,
although I was already in bed. She sat at the foot of my bed and told me
her story. It is so remarkable that I must set in down on paper.

Now I understand her nice hands and all her ways. I understand, too, how
it came about that I found her one day turning over the pages of a
volume by Anatole France, as though she could read French.

Her parents had been married twelve years when she was born. When she
was thirteen they celebrated their silver wedding. Until that moment in
her life she had grown up in the belief that they were a perfectly
united couple. The father was a chemist