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 to take me to some kind of sabbath. I don’t know what it was, but I saw horrors, vile horrors, that rankled for ever after like poison in my mind; and, when we went up to his house in Staffordshire, I recognised the scene; I recognised the arid rocks, and the trees, and the lay of the land. I knew I’d been there before on that fatal afternoon. Oh, you must believe me! Sometimes I think I shall go mad with the terror of it all.”

Arthur did not speak. Her words caused a ghastly suspicion to flash through his mind, and he could hardly contain himself. He thought that some dreadful shock had turned her brain. She buried her face in her hands.

“Look here,” he said, “you must come away at once. You can’t continue to live with him. You must never go back to Skene.”

“I can’t leave him. We’re bound together inseparably.”

“But it’s monstrous. There can be nothing to keep you to him. Come back to Susie. She’ll be very kind to you; she’ll help you to forget all you’ve endured.”

“It’s no use. You can do nothing for me.”

“Why not?”

“Because, notwithstanding, I love him with all my soul.”

“Margaret!”

“I hate him. He fills me with repulsion. And yet I do not know what there is in my blood that draws me to him against my will. My flesh cries out for him.”