“But at the end of a year our respite ended.  One day when I had been at the school, and you with me, I was surprised on my return home to see the door of the house open, and some men sitting at my table.  I hurried on, and walked into the room before they were aware of my coming.  There were four of them, two Indians and two who were either white or of mixed race; but it was only by his voice, and that after a moment’s pause, that I could recognize my husband.  My husband! never till then had I known the full horror that word could convey.  Remember that long ago I had been charmed, had fallen in love, as girls say, with one who seemed to represent the very perfection and ideal of manly beauty; that this beauty and stateliness of outward form had been so great that I took it for the truthful expression of such a nature as I thought most heroic—­remember this, and then think of what I saw after this year of absence.  A bloated, degraded, horrible creature—­not even a man, but a brute, raving half deliriously, and still drinking, while his companions, little more sober than himself, made him the subject of their jests and jeers.  I held my little innocent child in my arms while I saw this, and for the first time, and for her sake, I felt a bitter hatred rise up in my heart against her father.”

A strong shudder crept over Mrs. Costello; she covered her face with her hands for a moment, while Lucia drew more closely to her side.  Presently she went on.  “A cry from you, my child, drew the men’s attention to us.  ‘Here’s your squaw,’ one of them said to Christian, who tried to get up, but could not.  I saw that it was useless to speak to him, and turned to leave the house, intending to ask shelter from Mrs. Strafford or Mary, but before I could pass the door one of the strangers shut and bolted it, while another seized and held me fast.  They made me sit down at the table; they tried to drag you out of my arms, and failing in that, to make you swallow some of the whisky they were drinking.  I defended you as well as I could.  In my terror and despair I watched for the time when they should all become as helpless as the miserable creature who had brought them there; but it was long to wait.  Lucia, those hours when I saw myself and you at the mercy of these wretches were like years of agony.  They saw my fear, however I might try to disguise it, and delighted in the torment I suffered.  They tried again and again to take you from me; they threatened us both with every imaginable horror; till I thought night would have quite closed in before their drinking would end in complete intoxication.  At length, at length, it did.  One had fallen asleep; the other two were quarrelling feebly, when I ventured to move.  They tried to get up, to stop me; but I drew the bolt, and fled into the darkness where I knew they could not follow.