"Three times he succeeded in having me flung into Holloway Jail.I need not tell you of the terrors of that institution, nor of the degrading horrors of forcible feeding.They are known to a shocked and sympathetic world.But Reginald Maltravers contrived, in my case, to add to the usual brutalities a peculiar and personal touch.By bribery, as I believe, he succeeded in getting himself into the prison as a turnkey.It was his custom, when I lay weak and helpless in the semistupor of starvation, to glide into my cell and, standing by my couch, to recite to me the list of tempting viands that might appear daily upon the board of a Countess of Claiborne.
"He soon learned that his very presence itself was a persecution.
After my release from jail the last time, he began to follow me everywhere.Turn where I would, there was Reginald Maltravers.At suffrage meetings he took his station directly before the speaker's stand, stroked his long blond mustache with his long white fingers, and stared at me steadfastly through his monocle, with an evil smile upon his face.Formerly he had, in several instances, prevented me from attendingsuffrage meetings; once he had me spirited away and imprisoned for a week when it fell to my lot to burn a railroad station for the good of the cause.He strove to ruin me with my leaders in this despicable manner.
"But in the end he took to showing himself; he stood and stared.Merely that.He was subtle enough to shift the persecution from the province of the physical to the realm of the psychological.It was like being haunted.Even when I did not see him, I began to THINK that I saw him.He deliberately planted that hallucination in my mind.It is a wonder that I did not go mad.
"I finally determined to flee to America.I made all my arrangements with care and--as I thought--with secrecy.I imagined that I had given him the slip.But he was too clever for me.The third day out, as one of the ship's officers was showing me about the vessel, I detected Reginald Maltravers in the hold.It is not usual to allow women so far below decks; but I had insisted on seeing everything.Perspiring, begrimed, and mopping the moisture from his brow with a piece of cotton waste, there he stood in the guise of a--of--a croaker, is it, Mr.Cleggett?""Stoker, I believe," said Cleggett.
"Stoker.Thank you.He turned away in confusion when he saw that he was discovered.I perceived that, designing to cross on the same ship with me, he had thought himself hidden there.He was not wearing his monocle, but I would know that sloping forehead, that blond mustache, and that long, high, bony nose anywhere."Lady Agatha broke off for a moment.She was extremely agitated.But presently she continued: "I endeavored to evade him.The attempt was useless.He found me out at once.The persecution went on.It was more terrible here than it had been in England.There I had friends.I had hours, sometimes even whole days, to myself.
"But this was not the worst.A new phase developed.From his appearance it suddenly became apparent to me that Reginald Maltravers could not stop haunting me if he wished!""COULD not stop?" cried Cleggett.
"COULD not," said Lady Agatha."The hunt had become a monomania with him.It had become an obsession.He had given his whole mentality to it and it had absorbed all his faculties.He was now the victim of it.He had grown powerless in the grip of the idea; he had lost volition in the matter.
"You can imagine my consternation when I realized this.I began to fear the day when his insanity would take some violent form and he would endeavor to do me a personal injury.I determined to have a bodyguard.I wanted a man inured to danger; one capable of meeting violence with violence, if the need arose.It struck me that if I could get into touch with one of those chivalrous Western outlaws, of whom we read in American works of fiction, he would be just the sort of man I needed to protect me from Reginald Maltravers.
"I did not consider appealing to the authorities, for I have no confidence in your American laws, Mr.Cleggett.But I did not know how to go about finding a chivalrous Western outlaw.So finally I put an advertisement in the personal column of one of your morning papers for a reformed convict.""A reformed convict!" exclaimed Cleggett."May I ask how you worded the ad.?""Ad.?Oh, advertisement?I will get it for you."She went into the stateroom and was back in a moment with a newspaper cutting which she handed to Cleggett.It read:
Convict recently released from Sing Sing, if his reform is really genuine, may secure honestemployment by writing to A.F., care Morning Dispatch.
