same house, married her, or pretended to--she's very pretty, Keith--he
left her with a baby six months old, and another coming. That one died,
and she did nearly. Then she starved till another fellow took her on.
She lived with him two years; then Walenn turned up again, and made
her go back to him. The brute used to beat her black and blue, all for
nothing. Then he left her again. When I met her she'd lost her elder
child, too, and was taking anybody who came along."

He suddenly looked up into Keith's face.

"But I've never met a sweeter woman, nor a truer, that I swear. Woman!
She's only twenty now! When I went to her last night, that brute--that
Walenn--had found her out again; and when he came for me, swaggering and
bullying--Look!"--he touched a dark mark on his forehead--"I took his
throat in my hands, and when I let go--"

"Yes?"

"Dead. I never knew till afterwards that she was hanging on to him
behind."

Again he made that gesture-wringing his hands.

In a hard voice Keith said:

"What did you do then?"

"We sat by it a long time. Then I carried it on my back down the street,
round a corner to an archway."