table; they tried to drag you out of my arms, and failing in that, to
make you swallow some of the whisky they were drinking. I defended you
as well as I could. In my terror and despair I watched for the time when
they should all become as helpless as the miserable creature who had
brought them there; but it was long to wait. Lucia, those hours when I
saw myself and you at the mercy of these wretches were like years of
agony. They saw my fear, however I might try to disguise it, and
delighted in the torment I suffered. They tried again and again to take
you from me; they threatened us both with every imaginable horror; till
I thought night would have quite closed in before their drinking would
end in complete intoxication. At length, at length, it did. One had
fallen asleep; the other two were quarrelling feebly, when I ventured to
move. They tried to get up, to stop me; but I drew the bolt, and fled
into the darkness where I knew they could not follow.

"I reached Mr. Strafford's door, and we were received with all kindness;
but the fright, the sudden exposure to cold night air, after being for
so many hours shut up in a stifling room, and perhaps, added to all a
few drops of spirit which had been forced into your mouth, brought on
you a sudden, and to me most terrible, illness. It was your first; I had
never seen you suffer, and I thought you would die; that God would take
you from me as the last and crowning punishment for my disobedience. In
the great anguish of this idea, I wrote to my father--wrote by your
bedside while you slept, and confessing all my folly, implored his
forgiveness, as if that would preserve my child's life. You recovered,
and in my joy I almost forgot that the letter had been written. While
you lay ill, the Straffords concealed from me that my husband had been
to the house demanding my return home; but when you were almost well,
they told me not only this, but that he had declared in the village that
he would punish us both for our flight. It was then that Mr. Strafford
recommended me to think seriously of a final escape.

"'It is evident,' he said, 'that you neither can, nor ought, to put
yourself and your child again into his power--while you remain on the
island it must be here; but I strongly advise you to return to England,
or conceal yourself from him in some way.'

"I gratefully accepted his invitation to remain for a little while at
his house--the rest of his plan could not be hastil