egged her to
speak. She knew that her hunger must wait until she had stood at the bar
and received her sentence.

Rachael told her mother the story of her married life from the day she
had been left alone with John Levine,--a story of unimaginable horrors.
Like many cold men to whom the pleasures of the world are, nevertheless,
easy, Levine was a voluptuary and cruel. Had his child been safely born,
there would have been no measure in his brutality. Rachael had watched
for her opportunity, and one night when he had been at a state function
in Christianstadt, too secure in her apparent apathy to lock her door,
she had bribed a servant to drive her to Frederikstadt, and boarded the
ship her maid had ascertained was about to leave. She knew that he would
not follow her, for there was one person on earth he feared, and that
was Mary Fawcett. He would not have returned to St. Croix, had his
investments been less heavy; but on his estates he was lord, and had no
mind that his mother-in-law should set foot on them while he had slaves
to hold his gates.

Mary Fawcett listened to the horrid story, at first with a sort of
frantic wonder, for of the evil of life she had known nothing; then her
clear mind grasped it, her stoicism gave way, and she shrieked and raved
in such agony of soul that she had no fear of hell thereafter. Rachael
had to rise from the bed and minister to her, and the terrified blacks
ran screaming about the place, believing that their mistress had been
cursed.

She grew calm in time, but her face was puckered like an old apple, and
her eyes had lost their brilliancy for ever. And it was days before she
realized that her limbs still ached.

Rachael never opened her lips on the subject again. She went back to bed
and clung to her mother and Dr. Hamilton until her child was born. Then
for three months she recognized no one, and Dr. Hamilton, with all his
skill, did not venture to say whether or not her mind would live again.

The child was a boy, and as blond as its father. Mary Fawcett stood its
presence in the house for a month, then packed it off to St. Croix. She
received a curt acknowledgment from Levine, and an intimation that she
had saved herself much trouble. As for Rachael, he would have her back
when he saw fit. She wrote an appeal to the Captain-General and he sent
her word that the Danes would never bombard Brimstone Hill, and there
was no other way by which Levine could get her daughter while o