g in his ear. "I do not know why I tell you
this--you, a stranger--but if I do not tell some one, I think that the
memory of it will drive me mad. It was no accident at all. Mr. Fentolin
was thrown over!"

"By whom?" he asked.

She clung to his arm for a moment.

"Ah, don't ask me!" she begged. "No one knows. My uncle gave out, as
soon as he was conscious, that it was an accident."

"That, at any rate, was fine of him," Hamel declared.

She shivered.

"He was proud, at least, of our family name. Whatever credit he deserves
for it, he must have. It was owing to that accident that we became his
slaves: nothing but that--his absolute slaves, to wait upon him, if he
would, hand and foot. You see, he has never been able to marry. His life
was, of course, ruined. So the burden came to us. We took it up, little
thinking what was in store for us. Five years ago we came here to live.
Gerald wanted to go into the army; I wanted to travel with my mother.
Gerald has done all the work secretly, but he has never been allowed
to pass his examinations. I have never left England except to spend two
years at the strictest boarding-school in Paris, to which I was taken
and fetched away by one of his creatures. We live here, with the shadow
of this thing always with us. We are his puppets. If we hesitate to do
his bidding, he reminds us. So far, we have been his creatures, body and
soul. Whether it will go on, I cannot say--oh, I cannot say! It is bad
for us, but--there is mother, too. He makes her life a perfect hell!"

A roar of wind came booming once more across the marshes, bending
the trees which grew so thickly beneath them and which ascended
precipitately to the back of the house. The French windows behind
rattled. She looked around nervously.

"I am afraid of him all the time," she murmured. "He seems to overhear
everything--he or his creatures. Listen!"

They were silent for several moments. He whispered in her ear so closely
that through the darkness he could, see the fire in her eyes.

"You are telling me half," he said. "Tell me everything. Who threw your
uncle over the parapet?"

She stood by his side, motionless and trembling.

"It was the passion of a moment," she said at last, speaking hoarsely.
"I cannot tell you. Listen! Listen!"

"There is no one near," Hamel assured her. "It is the wind which shakes
the windows. I wish that you would tell me everything. I would like to
be your friend. Believe me, I have