politeness, or even of gratitude; her heart was too full of other words
that had welled up the moment she met his pitying glance, and felt her
doubts fall away.

They sat down opposite each other, and she said in a low voice, while
slow difficult tears gathered in her aching eyes,--'I want to tell you
how unhappy I am--how weak and wicked. I feel no strength to live or die.
I thought you could tell me something that would help me.' She paused.

'Perhaps I can,' Mr. Tryan said, 'for in speaking to me you are speaking
to a fellow-sinner who has needed just the comfort and help you are
needing.'

'And you did find it?'

'Yes; and I trust you will find it.'

'O, I should like to be good and to do right,' Janet burst forth; 'but
indeed, indeed, my lot has been a very hard one. I loved my husband very
dearly when we were married, and I meant to make him happy--I wanted
nothing else. But he began to be angry with me for little things and ...
I don't want to accuse him ... but he drank and got more and more unkind
to me, and then very cruel, and he beat me. And that cut me to the heart.
It made me almost mad sometimes to think all our love had come to that
... I couldn't bear up against it. I had never been used to drink
anything but water. I hated wine and spirits because Robert drank them
so; but one day when I was very wretched, and the wine was standing on
the table, I suddenly ... I can hardly remember how I came to do it ... I
poured some wine into a large glass and drank it. It blunted my feelings.
and made me more indifferent. After that, the temptation was always
coming, and it got stronger and stronger. I was ashamed, and I hated what
I did; but almost while the thought was passing through my mind that I
would never do it again, I did it. It seemed as if there was a demon in
me always making me rush to do what I longed not to do. And I thought all
the more that God was cruel; for if He had not sent me that dreadful
trial, so much worse than other women have to bear, I should not have
done wrong in that way. I suppose it is wicked to think so ... I feel as
if there must be goodness and right above us, but I can't see it, I can't
trust in it. And I have gone on in that way for years and years. At one
time it used to be better now and then, but everything has got worse
lately. I felt sure it must soon end somehow. And last night he turned me
out of doors ... I don't know what to do. I will never go back to that
life