"Henry's coming! Henry, who hated me. He's coming to carry me away!"
"Yes...." The little voice was now the merest whisper. "But he'll come all the same.... He always does what he says!"
The two women waited, listening. Miss Allen could hear the old lady's heart thumping and leaping close to her own. Through the opened windows came the sibilant rumble of the motor-buses. Then Mrs. Porter gently pushed Miss Allen away. "Sit on a chair, Lucy dear. I must tell you everything. I must share this with someone."
She seemed to have regained some of her calmness. She sat straight up upon the sofa, patting her lace cap with her hands, feeling for the cameo brooch at her breast. Miss Allen drew a chair close to the sofa; turning again towards the mantelpiece, she saw that it stood out boldly and clearly; the tick of the clock came across to her with almost startling urgency.
"Now, dear Mrs. Porter, what is it that is alarming you?" she said.
Mrs. Porter cleared her throat. "You know, Lucy, that I was married a great many years ago. I was only a very young girl at the time, very ignorant of course, and you can understand, my dear, that my father and mother influenced me very deeply. They liked Mr. Porter. They thought that he would make me a good husband and that I should be very happy.... I was not happy, Lucy dear, never from the very first moment!"
Here Mrs. Porter put out her hand and took Miss Allen's strong one. "I am very willing to believe that much of the unhappiness was due to myself. I was a young, foolish girl; I was disturbed from the very first by the stories that Mr. Porter told me, and the pictures he showed me. I was foolish about those things. He saw that they shocked me, and I think that that amused him. From the first it delighted him to tease me. Then--soon--he tired of me. He had mistresses. He brought them to our house. He insulted me in every way possible. I had years of that misery. God only knows how I lived through it. It became a habit with him to frighten and shock me. It was a game that he loved to play. I think he wanted to see how far I would go. But I was patient through all those many years. Oh! so patient! It was weak, perhaps, but there seemed nothing else for me to be."
