g from end to end, each word
cutting mercilessly through the unhappy prisoner's very soul.

"Her maiden name had been Maria Denover, and she was a native of New
York City. At the age of eighteen an English officer met her while on
a visit to Niagara, fell desperately in love with her, and married her
out of hand.

"Even at that early age she was utterly lost and abandoned; and she
only married Captain Hunsden in a fit of mad desperation and rage
because John Thorndyke, her lover, scornfully refused to make her his
wife.

"Captain Hunsden took her with him to Gibraltar, where his regiment was
stationed, serenely unconscious of his terrible disgrace. One year
after a daughter was born, but neither husband nor child could win this
woman from the man she passionately loved.

"She urged her husband to take her back to New York to see her friends;
she pleaded with a vehemence he could not resist, and in an evil hour
he obeyed.

"Again she met her lover. Three weeks after the wronged husband and
all the world knew the revolting story of her degradation. She had
fled with Thorndyke."

Sybilla paused to let her words take effect. Then she slowly went on:

"There was a divorce, of course; the matter was hushed up as much as
possible; Captain Hunsden went back to his regiment a broken-hearted
man.

"Two years after he sailed for England, but not to remain. How he
wandered over the world, his daughter accompanying him, from that time
until he returned to Hunsden Hall, every one knows. But during all
that time he never heard one word of or from his lost wife.

"She remained with Thorndyke--half starved, brutally beaten, horribly
ill-used--taunted from the first by him, and hated at the last. But
she clung to him through all, as women do cling; she had given up the
whole world for his sake; she must bear his abuse to the end. And she
did, heroically.

"He died--stabbed in a drunken brawl--died with her kneeling by his
side, and his last word an oath. He died and was buried, and she was
alone in the world as miserable a woman as the wide earth ever held.

"One wish alone was strong within her--to look again upon her child
before she died. She had no wish to speak to her, to reveal herself,
only to look once more upon her face, then lie down by the road-side
and die.

"She knew she was married and living here; Thorndyke had maliciously
kept her _au fait_ of her husband and child. She sold all she
possessed