He was conducted to his tent. The interpreter confirmed there all that Saxe had divined. Let it be said now that Saxe had one clear inspiration. Before leaving the hut, he had turned and spoken to the woman who was fawning on the wretched negro. “Mary,” he said, “if you ask me to, I will shoot you straight through the heart.” The woman had snarled unintelligibly at the sound of his voice, and had redoubled her caresses. Can you blame Saxe for having doubted? Remember that she had not for one moment given any sign of being Mary Bradford; remember that he had no proof that it was Mary Bradford. “Had you no intuition of her?” asked young Adams, later, at the Mission. “Intuition!” cried Saxe. “There wasn’t a feature of Mary Bradford there: she was a loathsome horror.” Let those who cannot believe in Saxe’s failure to recognize her, reflect for an instant on all that is contained in that literal statement. Have you never failed, after a few years of separation, to recognize some one: some one whose face had not been subjected to barbaric decoration and disfigurement, not even to three years of the African sun; who, living all the while in the same quiet street, had merely passed for a time under the skilful transforming hands of sorrow? I have seen Mary Bradford’s photograph, and was told at the same time that the not very striking face depended for its individuality on the expression of eyes and mouth. But painted eyes ... and a lip-ring? She was undoubtedly, as Saxe said, “a loathsome horror”; and a loathsome horror who gave no sign. I firmly believe that she was not recognizable to the eye. Saxe’s only chance would have lain in divination; in being able to say unerringly of the woman he loved: “Thus, or thus, in given circumstances, would she behave.” Such knowledge of Mary Bradford could never have been easy to any man. In my opinion, no one can blame him for doubting. The magnificence of the performance was almost outside the realm of possibility. I asked Saxe once if Mary Bradford had been good at acting. He had never seen her do but one part: she had done that extremely well. And the part? Beatrice, in _Much Ado_. Beatrice! The strain of it had told on Saxe, and he slept that night. But it is only fair to say that, before he slept, he had quite made up his mind that he was as far away from Mary Bradford as he had ever been. It is not to be wondered at. Only a man who had grasped Mary Bradford’s idea--it has taken me three years to do that, entirely--could have believed that she would let Saxe go out baffled from the hut in which she deliberately chose to stay with her half-drunk, wholly vile captor. Women who could have done all the rest, would have turned at Saxe’s offer of a kindly shot through the heart. But Mary Bradford was great. She was also infinitely wronged by Fate. It is all wanton, wanton--to the very last: all, that is, except her own part, which was sublimely reasoned.