Page:Walpole--portrait of man with red hair.djvu/232

 me everything. I should see the world and all life, and that his son loved me and would be kind to me.

"After that it was the strangest thing. I don't say that he hypnotised me. I knew that he was bad. Every one in the place was speaking about him. He had done some cruel thing to a horse, and there was a story, too, about some woman in the village. But I thought that I knew better than all of them, that I would save father and the boys and be grand myself—and then I would show David that he wasn't the only one who cared for me.

"And so—I consented. From the moment I promised I was terrified. I knew that I had done a terrible thing. But it was too late. I was already a prisoner. That is a hysterical thing to say, but it is true. They never let me out of their sight. I was married very quickly after that. I won't say anything about the first week of my marriage except that I didn't need books any more to teach me. I knew the sin I'd committed. But I was proud—I was as proud as I was frightened. I wasn't going to let any one know what a terrible position I was in—and especially David. When we went to Treliss, David came too and waited. In my heart I was so glad he was there.

"You don't know what went on in that house. The younger Crispin wasn't unkind. He was simply indifferent. He thought of nothing and no-