peed. We were going at a mad
pace. I struck him across the mouth, and across the eyes. He lost
control of the machine. I jumped then--I was not even shaken. I saw
the motor dashed to pieces against the wall, and I saw him pitched on
his head into the road. I leaned over and looked at him--he was quite
still. I could not hear his heart beat. I thought that he was dead. I
stole away and walked to the railway station. That night in Paris I
saw on the bills 'Fatal Motor Accidents.' _Le Petit Journal_ said that
the man was dead. I was afraid that I might be called upon as a
witness. That is why I was so anxious to leave Paris. The man who came
to our rooms, you know, that night was his friend."

"The good God!" Anna murmured, herself shaken with fear. "You were
married to him!"

"It could not be legal," Annabel moaned. "It couldn't be. I thought
that I was marrying Meysey Hill, not that creature. We stepped from
the Embassy into the motor--and oh! I thought that he was dead. Why
didn't he die?"

Anna sprang to her feet and walked restlessly up and down the room.
Annabel watched her with wide-open, terrified eyes.

"You won't give me away, Anna. He would never recognize me now. You
are much more like what I was then."

Anna stopped in front of her.

"You don't propose, do you," she said quietly, "that I should take
this man for my husband?"

"You can drive him away," Annabel cried. "Tell him that he is mad. Go
and live somewhere else."

"In his present mood," Anna remarked, "he would follow me."

"Oh, you are strong and brave," Annabel murmured. "You can keep him at
arm's length. Besides, it was under false pretences. He told me that
he was a millionaire. It could not be a legal marriage."

"I am very much afraid," Anna answered, "that it was. It might be
upset. I am wondering whether it would not be better to tell your
husband everything. You will never be happy with this hanging over
you."

Annabel moistened her dry lips with a handkerchief steeped in eau de
Cologne.

"You don't know him, Anna," she said with a little shudder, "or you
would not talk like that. He is steeped in the conventions. Every
slight action is influenced by what he imagines would be the opinion
of other people. Anything in the least irregular is like poison to
him. He has no imagination, no real generosity. You might tell the
truth to some men, but never to him."

Anna was thoughtful. A conviction that her sister's words were true
h