max, so I went to New
York to see if she would take advantage of my absence to slip away.
When she did, it seemed pretty conclusive evidence of her guilt. I put
Kitty Doyle on her track. Until this morning, the worst I thought of
you was that your friendship for Janet had led you to condone her
crime."

"Whereas the truth is exactly the reverse! Her friendship and my
crime!" She gave a little shiver. "That chip from the
dagger--interesting! It really started you on the right track, didn't
it? I never knew I'd nicked the blade. Mmph. Extraordinary what
trifles may affect our destinies! Funny, don't you think?"

Each word she uttered in that whimsical tone was like a needle pricking
his heart. He threw out his hands protestingly, suddenly groaning the
very phrase that Janet had used in her troubled dreams.

"Miss Ocky, why did you do it? Why did you do it?"

"Yes, I must tell you about that." Her reply was cool, matter-of-fact,
and he did not see that she winced at the pain in his voice. "After
all, I can plead extenuating circumstances. I'll make it short as
possible; you can ask questions later if you wish. Meanwhile, please
don't interrupt me or I'll lose track of my story.

"I had been away from here twenty-two years. When I came back ten
weeks ago I discovered a situation that I had never dreamed existed.
Lucy's letters had never been especially happy or cheerful, but neither
had they contained anything to give me even an inkling of the truth. I
did not know she was married to a human vampire, a sort of--of
spiritual leech! Words can't tell you the difference between the Lucy
I left and the Lucy I returned to! It hurt me--oh, it hurt me!

"You won't put down all that I say about Simon to personal prejudice
because you have heard enough about him from others to realize how mean
and selfish and--and psychically cruel he could be. He never beat
Lucy, but that was simply because he specialized in a more refined type
of cruelty--and if you want to know which of the two hurts a woman
most, there are plenty of unfortunate wives who can tell you!

"Simon owed everything he had in the world to Lucy, for it was the
money she brought to their marriage that enabled him to start his own
tannery and gave him the opportunity to develop new processes that
proved lucrative. Father disapproved of the match, but did not
actively oppose it, and when he died shortly after, Simon's feet were
on the road to fo