g. I tell you, gentlemen, it nearly drove me mad. This
drunken hound, that he should dare to raise his hand to her, whose
boots he was not worthy to lick! I met Theresa again. Then I met Mary
herself--and met her again. Then she would meet me no more. But the
other day I had a notice that I was to start on my voyage within a week,
and I determined that I would see her once before I left. Theresa was
always my friend, for she loved Mary and hated this villain almost as
much as I did. From her I learned the ways of the house. Mary used to
sit up reading in her own little room downstairs. I crept round there
last night and scratched at the window. At first she would not open to
me, but in her heart I know that now she loves me, and she could not
leave me in the frosty night. She whispered to me to come round to the
big front window, and I found it open before me, so as to let me into
the dining-room. Again I heard from her own lips things that made my
blood boil, and again I cursed this brute who mishandled the woman I
loved. Well, gentlemen, I was standing with her just inside the window,
in all innocence, as God is my judge, when he rushed like a madman into
the room, called her the vilest name that a man could use to a woman,
and welted her across the face with the stick he had in his hand. I had
sprung for the poker, and it was a fair fight between us. See here,
on my arm, where his first blow fell. Then it was my turn, and I went
through him as if he had been a rotten pumpkin. Do you think I was
sorry? Not I! It was his life or mine, but far more than that, it was
his life or hers, for how could I leave her in the power of this madman?
That was how I killed him. Was I wrong? Well, then, what would either of
you gentlemen have done, if you had been in my position?"

"She had screamed when he struck her, and that brought old Theresa down
from the room above. There was a bottle of wine on the sideboard, and I
opened it and poured a little between Mary's lips, for she was half dead
with shock. Then I took a drop myself. Theresa was as cool as ice, and
it was her plot as much as mine. We must make it appear that burglars
had done the thing. Theresa kept on repeating our story to her mistress,
while I swarmed up and cut the rope of the bell. Then I lashed her in
her chair, and frayed out the end of the rope to make it look natural,
else they would wonder how in the world a burglar could have got up
there to cut it. Then I ga