What made me suspect that man Wesson I do not know, unless it was instinct. The moment I set my eyes upon him I put him down for an enemy. I wrote a few lines to my husband, telling him to watch, but he answered that my suspicions were groundless, another proof how much clearer are my intuitions than his. Wesson was always prying around. I had some conversations on deck with him when you left me alone, but could come to no positive conclusion except that I wished he was somewhere on shore.
I didn't really guess what he was up to until we had landed at St. Thomas.
CHAPTER XXV.
"WITH HIS WIFE, OF COURSE."
I leave the reader to imagine my feelings, [it is Camran writing now] as I read these lines, if he can. To describe them is more than I am able to do. Suffice it to say that I read on and on, like one fascinated, and there was no sign of the collapse I might have expected from the dreadful revelations. The catastrophe was too immense to be met in any ordinary way.
You will now need no confession of mine [continued this strange MS.] to inform you who purloined Miss Howes' bracelet and your shirtstud. Who stole my own jewelry might be a harder riddle, so I will make haste to say that I did that also. It was the easiest way to prevent suspicion falling on my head, though it can hardly be said to have been entirely successful, as Mr. Howes never had the least doubt of my guilt. I knew that from the first, by the freezing manner he immediately adopted toward me and the chilling way in which his "niece," or friend, as she afterwards proved, used me until I left the boat. I ought to say here that common thefts are not in my line, and that I regret having been drawn into the commission of these acts. My husband urged the deed upon me, and rather than let him run the risk of doing it himself—which he threatened—I yielded to his importunities. He had embarked with very little ready money, on account of recent ill luck at the faro table, and dreaded being stranded in some foreign port without enough to complete his voyage. I was, as you know, powerless to aid him much in any other way.
You will naturally inquire why, if this is true, my husband returned to you the money he won at cards, taking your check instead. He did so because I insisted upon it. I told him, at the rate he was going, we should be high and dry on the reefs before we got back to America. There was little sense in killing a goose (I meant you, my dear Donald) that was likely to lay golden eggs for a long time if properly tended.
Wesson worried you at Eggert's, didn't he? Well, he worried me a great deal more. I had an instinctive fear of him and was at my wits' end to give a reason. I knew also that my husband was waiting for me at St. Croix and wished to consult him in regard to several matters. I wished to get away from Eggert, the two or three fainting fits I had there were simulated for the purpose of inducing you to cut your stay as short as possible.