But if she knew it, why had she not spoken of it?
And could it be that she had no friends; that everybody had deserted her; that she was alone in the world?
As he thought of it all, the whole thing seemed to him to be too terrible for reality.

What a tragedy was that she had told him! He thought of the man's insolence to the woman whom he had married and sworn to love, then of his cruelty, his fiendish, hellish cruelty; and lastly of his terrible punishment.

"I stuck to him through it all," she had said to him; and then he endeavored to picture to himself that bedside by which Julia Brabazon, his Julia Brabazon, had remained firm, when hospital attendants had been scared by the horrors they had witnessed, and the nerves of a strong man, of a man paid for such work, had failed him! The truth of her word throughout he never doubted; and, indeed, no man or woman who heard her could have doubted.

One hears stories told that to oneself, the hearer, are manifestly false; and one hears stories as to the truth or falsehood of which one is in doubt; and stories again which seem to be partly true and partly untrue.

But one also hears that of the truth of which no doubt seems to be possible.