"I was left an orphan when I was four years old," she said. "Only Heaven
knows how I have cried out upon my parents for leaving me. I never had
one happy hour. Can you imagine a whole childhood passed without one
happy hour?"

"Hardly," I said.

With white, nervous fingers she fastened the gold chain round her neck
again.

"Not one happy hour," she said. "I was left under the care of my
grandmother, a proud, cold, cruel woman, who never said a kind word to
me, and who grudged me every slice of bread and butter I ate."

She looked at me, still holding the golden locket in her white fingers.

"If I had been like other girls," she said "if I had parents to love me,
brothers and sisters, friends or relatives, I should have been
different. Believe me, Mr. Ford, there are white slaves in England whose
slavery is worse than that of an African child. I was one of them. I
think of my youth with a sick shudder; I think of my childhood with
horror, and I almost thank Heaven that the tyrant is dead who blighted
my life."

Now the real woman was breaking through the mask; her face flushed; her
eyes shone.

"I often talk to Lance about it," she said, "this terrible childhood of
mine. I was punished for the least offence. I never heard a word of pity
or affection. I never saw a look of anything but hate on my