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" 'Well, I don't know now whether it was pure devilry on the part of this woman, or whether she thought that she could turn me against my wife by encouraging her to misbehave.

Anyway, she took a house just two streets off and let lodgings to sailors.

Fairbairn used to stay there, and Mary would go round to have tea with her sister and him.

How often she went I don't know, but I followed her one day, and as I broke in at the door Fairbairn got away over the back garden wall, like the cowardly skunk that he was.

I swore to my wife that I would kill her if I found her in his company again, and I led her back with me, sobbing and trembling, and as white as a piece of paper.

There was no trace of love between us any longer.

I could see that she hated me and feared me, and when the thought of it drove me to drink, then she despised me as well.

" 'Well, Sarah found that she could not make a living in Liverpool, so she went back, as I understand, to live with her sister in Croydon, and things jogged on much the same as ever at home. And then came this last week and all the misery and ruin.

" 'It was in this way.

We had gone on the May Day for a round voyage of seven days, but a hogshead got loose and started one of our plates, so that we had to put back into port for twelve hours.

I left the ship and came home, thinking what a surprise it would be for my wife, and hoping that maybe she would be glad to see me so soon.

The thought was in my head as I turned into my own street, and at that moment a cab passed me, and there she was, sitting by the side of Fairbairn, the two chatting and laughing, with never a thought for me as I stood watching them from the footpath.

" 'I tell you, and I give you my word for it, that from that moment I was not my own master, and it is all like a dim dream when I look back on it.

I had been drinking hard of late, and the two things together fairly turned my brain.

There's something throbbing in my head now, like a docker's hammer, but that morning I seemed to have all Niagara whizzing and buzzing in my ears.

" 'Well, I took to my heels, and I ran after the cab.

I had a heavy oak stick in my hand, and I tell you I saw red from the first; but as I ran I got cunning, too, and hung back a little to see them without being seen.

They pulled up soon at the railway station.

There was a good crowd round the booking-office, so I got quite close to them without being seen.

They took tickets for New Brighton.

So did I, but I got in three carriages behind them.

When we reached it they walked along the Parade, and I was never more than a hundred yards from them.

At last I saw them hire a boat and start for a row, for it was a very hot day, and they thought, no doubt, that it would be cooler on the water.

" 'It was just as if they had been given into my hands.

There was a bit of a haze, and you could not see more than a few hundred yards.

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