Northern Weekly Gazette. — 1903-06-27 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

NORTHERN WEEKLY GAZETTE.  We fought. I threw him out of the window." He was killed."  "Killed!" Netta's face had grown whiter. They charged me with murder. It, was not murder. I had not meant to kill him. They perceived that themselves. They altered the charge to manslaughter. Of that they found me guilty, and sentenced me to two years' hard labour." "Frank!" She put her hand upon his shoulder, and smuggled closer to him. "You will understand that that was not nice for me. I resolved to put the past—the world in which I had lived—behind me; to submerge my own identity; to begin life again at some fresh starting-point. So I came to Putney, and fell in love with you; wh;ch I ought not to have done." "Why oughtn't you to have fallen in love with me? You were divorced before I came." _ _  - "Oh, yes ; I was divorced before I came."  Then why oughtn't you to have fallen in love with me? Because I wasn't good enough?" "The idea! Because of my record. A man with such a record as mine ought not to have allowed himself to fall in love with such a woman as you; for her sake, not his." "Indeed. And, pray, what's the matter with your record? If I found out that a woman was trying—even trying, mind—to steal your love from me, do you suppose that I shouldn't feel like killing her? And I shouldn't be surprised if I did it, too." "You need never have any fear of anyone alienating my love from you. I owe you too much." "You owe me too much? What do you owe me?" "I owe you happiness." "And don't I owe you happiness?" "I hope to succeed in making you happy before I've done." "Before you've dine? What do you think you've being doing up to now? Frank, you're a. wise person, but I'm beginning to wonder if, after all, on some points you not a little dull. Aren't you perfectly aware that long ago you made me the happiest woman that ever lived?" "But happinew in your mouth means one thing, and in mine another." "Does it? How pleasant! I am learning!" "By consenting to become my wife you restored me to my self-respect; you raised me out of the ditch into which I had fallen. The consciousness that a good woman had consented to entrust her life to me made a better man of me than I ever thought I should have become again. It is in that sense that I mean that I owe you happiness." "Is it? Very pretty. And excellently expressed. Now, perhaps, you will allow me to ask you just one question. What would have become of me if it hadn't been for you?" "That is a question which neither I nor any other man can answer." "Is it? Then I can at least supply you with the probabilities. At best I should have been still the household drudge I was when fitst you saw me. But the probabilities are that 1 shoukl have been on the streete—a pauper, hopeless and downtrodden, begging my bread. Instead of which you have not only made me your wife —than which no greater honour could have befallen a woman—but you have als3 made of me a Marchioness. No, sir ----or, my dear lord, as I suppose it'll• have to be—don't you ever attempt to drop even the very faintest hint that you owe me more than I owe you—because the thing is, on the face of it, so utterly preposterous' that if you will descend to such absurdities you'll put me in such  a temper that I'm nearly sure we shall quarrel."