"I staid in India for a year and a half, until I found at last that
there was no hope. I could find nothing to do there, and if I remained I
would have to starve or go out to service. This I could not think of
doing. So I prepared to come back here. But my wife refused to leave her
son. She was resolved, she said, to stay by him till the last. I tried
to dissuade her, but could not move her. I told her that I could not be
a domestic. She said that she could do even that for the sake of her
boy. And she went off at once and got a situation as nurse with the same
Colonel Despard with whom Briggs, or, as he called himself, Potts, was
staying."

"What was the Christian name of this Potts?" asked Brandon, calmly.

"John--John Potts."

Brandon said nothing further, and Compton resumed.

"Thus my wife actually left me. I could not stay and be a slave. So I
made her promise to write me, and told her that I would send her as much
money as I could. She clung to me half broken-hearted as I left her. Our
parting was a bitter one--bitter enough: but I would rather break my
heart with grief than be a servant. Besides, she knew that whenever she
came back my heart was open to receive her.

"I came back to my lonely life out here and lived for nearly two years.
At last, in September 1828, a mail arrived from India bringing a letter
from my wife and Indian papers. The news which they brought well-nigh
drove me mad."