“It would not,” contradicted Miss Grison, “what do you know about it, Mr. Fuller? although I have no quarrel with you, as you have always treated me like a gentleman. It would not have been a good move, because Baldwin was so weak that unless he was constantly looked after, he was always getting into dangerous trouble. He was a fool; yes, I who loved him, and who sacrificed my life to him, say that he was a weak fool. I did my best to keep him in the straight path, I allowed him a weekly income, and comforted him, I did all that a sister and a woman could do. But it was all of no use, as you may guess, you men who are bullying a poor weak woman. When Baldwin confessed to me that he had murdered that man outside Chin Chow’s opium den I knew that the end had come.” “What end?” demanded Moon stolidly. “The end of my patience, the end of the sinful years which Baldwin was permitted to live on this miserable earth,” cried Miss Grison. “He told me that he was suspected, and implored me to save him. I promised to do so, and I did in the only way that I could. I killed him, I stabbed him to the heart, and that was an easy death compared to being hanged.” So fierce and wild did she look as she said these words, that all present shivered, and Sorley moaned, “A terrible woman, a terrible woman.” “A merciful woman! a good woman! a bold woman!” cried his wife, overhearing. “A weaker woman would not have acted as I did. But it was the only way, if I wished to save him from being hanged and the honored name of our father, Dr. Theophilus Grison, from being further smirched. I determined to kill Baldwin, and also to use his death as a means to hang you.” “You wicked woman!” cried Alan indignantly. “Wicked? Why wicked, since this beast ruined both me and my brother? I was only dealing out justice to him, as I dealt out mercy to Baldwin. And I made my plans cleverly. I knew that Mr. Bakche was haunting Mother Slaig’s, and counted on him recognizing my brute of a husband on that night, since he had already seen him here when he came to make inquiries about the peacock. I made Baldwin write to Sorley to appoint the thirteenth of November night as the time to come up. Baldwin showed me the reply, and I knew that he would be there. I took the stiletto which belonged to Sorley as I stole it along with the peacock when I left this house. Since it was his I thought it would make the evidence against him more certain. I went to Rotherhithe and watched. I saw Sorley go, and then I went up to Baldwin’s room and stabbed him. It doesn’t matter how I cajoled him to lie down and rest, and chose my time. I stabbed him to the heart and that is enough for you to know.” Again her listeners shivered, for there seemed to be something terrible about this small frail woman admitting such a dreadful deed so callously and boldly. She smiled as she saw their feeling. “What a lot of cowards you men are,” she jeered, “you wouldn’t have acted so bravely; no, not you.”