“Masculine you call it!” cried the other, scoffingly; “you never made such a blunder in your life. They are entirely and essentially womanly. You 'd break twenty men down, smash them like rotten twigs, before you 'd succeed in turning one woman of this stamp from her fixed will. I 'll tell you another thing, too, Stocmar,” added he, in a lower voice: “they do not fear the world the way men do. Would you believe it? Collins and myself left the island in a fishing-boat, and she--the woman--went coolly on board the mail-packet with her maid and child, and sat down to breakfast with the passengers, one of whom had actually served on the jury.” “What pluck! I call that pluck.” “It's more like madness than real courage,” said the other, peevishly; and for some minutes they walked on side by side without a word. “If I remember rightly,” said Stocmar, “she was not put on her trial?” “No; there was a great discussion about it, and many blamed the Crown lawyers for not including her; but, in truth, there was not a shadow of evidence to be brought against her. His treatment of her might have suggested the possibility of any vengeance.” “Was it so cruel?” “Cruel is no word for it. There was not an insult nor an outrage spared her. She passed one night in the deep snow in the garden, and was carried senseless into the house at morning, and only rallied after days of treatment. He fired at her another time.” “Shot her!” “Yes, shot her through the shoulder,--sent the bullet through here,-- because she would not write to Ogden a begging letter, entreating him to assist her with a couple of hundred pounds.” “Oh, that was too gross!” exclaimed Stocmar. “He told her, 'You 've cost me fifteen hundred in damages, and you may tell Ogden he shall have you back again for fifty.'” “And she bore all this?” “I don't know what you mean by bearing it. She did not stab him. Some say that Hawke was mad, but I never thought so. He had boastful fits at times, in which he would vaunt all his villanies, and tell you of the infamies he had done with this man and that; but they were purely the emanations of an intense vanity, which left him unable to conceal anything. Imagine, for instance, his boasting how he had done the 'Globe' office out of ten thousand, insured on his first wife's life,-- drowned when bathing. I heard the story from his own lips, and I 'll never forget his laugh as he said, 'I 'd have been in a hole if Mary had n't.'” “That was madness, depend on 't.” “No; I think not. It was partly vanity, for he delighted above all things to create an effect, and partly a studied plan to exercise an influence by actual terror, in which he had a considerable success. I could tell you of a score of men who would not have dared to thwart him; and it was at last downright desperation drove Tom Towers and Wake to”-- he hesitated, faltered, and, in a weak voice, added,--“to do it!” “How was it brought about?” whispered Stocmar, cautiously.