sisted in
requiring it. The fact is I no longer possessed motive or strength
to resist. Even your unexpected appearance at the door, Mrs. Daniels,
offered no prospect of hope. Arouse the house? what would that do?
only reveal my cherished secret and perhaps jeopardize the life of my
husband. Besides, they were my own near kin, remember, and so had some
little claim upon my consideration, at least to the point of my not
personally betraying them unless they menaced immediate and actual harm.
The escape by the window which would have been a difficult task for most
women to perform, was easy enough for me. I was brought up to wild
ways you know, and the descent of a ladder forty feet long was a
comparatively trivial thing for me to accomplish. It was the tearing
away from a life of silent peace, the reentrance of my soul into an
atmosphere of sin and deadly plotting, that was the hard thing, the
difficult dreadful thing which hung weights to my feet, and made me
well nigh mad. And it was this which at the sight of a policeman in the
street led me to make an effort to escape. But it was not successful.
Though I was fortunate enough to free myself from the grasp of my father
and brother, I reached the gate on ----- street only to encounter the
eyes of him whose displeasure I most feared, looking sternly upon me
from the other side. The shock was too much for me in my then weak and
unnerved condition. Without considering anything but the fact that he
never had known and never must, that I had been in the same house with
him for so long, I rushed back to the corner and into the arms of the
men who awaited me. How you came to be there, Mr. Blake, or why you did
not open the gate and follow, I cannot say."

"The gate was locked," returned that gentleman. "You remember it closes
with a spring, and can only be opened by means of a key which I did not
have."

"My father had it," she murmured; "he spent a whole week in the endeavor
to get hold of it, and finally succeeded on the evening of the very day
he used it. It was left in the lock I believe."

"So much for servants," I whispered to myself.

"The next morning," continued she, "they put the case very plainly
before me. I was at liberty to return at once to my home if I would
promise to work in their interest by making certain demands upon you as
your wife. All they wanted, said they, was a snug little sum and a lift
out of the country. If I would secure them these, they wou