"Suddenly coming to himself, parched, he de-manded a drink of water. She did not move. She had not understood, though he may have thought he was speaking in English. He waited, looking at her, burning with fever, amazed at her silence and immobility, and then he shouted impatiently, 'Water! Give me water!'
"She jumped to her feet, snatched up the child, and stood still. He spoke to her, and his passion-ate remonstrances only increased her fear of that strange man. I believe he spoke to her for a long time, entreating, wondering, pleading, ordering, Isuppose. She says she bore it as long as she could.
And then a gust of rage came over him.
"He sat up and called out terribly one word--some word. Then he got up as though he hadn't been ill at all, she says. And as in fevered dismay, indignation, and wonder he tried to get to her round the table, she simply opened the door and ran out with the child in her arms. She heard him call twice after her down the road in a terrible voice--and fled. . . . Ah! but you should have seen stir-ring behind the dull, blurred glance of these eyes the spectre of the fear which had hunted her on that night three miles and a half to the door of Fos-ter's cottage! I did the next day.
"And it was I who found him lying face down and his body in a puddle, just outside the little wicket-gate.
"I had been called out that night to an urgent case in the village, and on my way home at day-break passed by the cottage. The door stood open.