The effect which this letter produced upon the merchant may be more easily conceived than described. It is enough to say that this tolerably strong-minded man, who had so well played his part throughout the interview I have at such length described, here broke down, completely unnerved. He put himself under my guidance, and quitted the house with me that evening, leaving Mrs. Green therein—alone.
Mr. Green and I had a meeting on the following day at the office of his solicitor, to whom I handed a copy of the letter; and I also supplied a copy to the attorney for the prisoner. It was arranged between Mr. Green’s solicitor and his client that a person should be sent up to take immediate possession of the house at Kentish Town, which he had evacuated on the previous night.
The man, on his arrival there, discovered that Mrs. Green had fled. She took her departure early that morning. She left no article behind that was easy of removal. A somewhat extensive wardrobe was packed in boxes. All the articles of jewelry, that were easily convertible into money, she also took. Mr. Green had, at my suggestion, left her ten cheques, drawn upon his private bankers, for 5l. each, and each post-dated seven days apart. These, of course, she took with her. She left no address behind her. She took neither of the servants for companionship. Whither she had gone to nobody knew, nor did I care.
There was a meeting between the solicitor for the prosecutor and the solicitor for the prisoner—in confidence, and without prejudice.
Communications were, under this shield, freely exchanged. The poor girl was told that an application would be made for her release, when next taken before the magistrate, under circumstances that would be afterwards explained to her. She was further informed that her master was confident of her innocence; that the guilty person had been traced, but would not be prosecuted. For the injury she had received at his hands, which he was sorry to confess was the consequence of his rash impulses, he asked her forgiveness, which she readily granted him.
At the next examination before the magistrate the prosecutor’s solicitor, who appeared for the first time, said that the case had been investigated since the former meeting, and that he would ask his worship’s permission to be allowed to withdraw from the prosecution. The magistrate at once turned to the prisoner’s solicitor, asked whether he had any objection to that course, and received for reply that his client had no objection to her release without conditions.
The poor girl was accordingly liberated, and taken away under the care of a relative, in whose hands means were placed for her immediate comfortable provision. Mr. Green provided those means.
Of Mrs. Green I have since heard. Indeed I had another engagement to trace her, the clue to which was furnished by herself. She employed an attorney about two months after her flight from Kentish Town, who waited upon the private solicitor of her husband, and implored him, on the ground of humanity, to let her have money. The advocate begged him to think of the discredit that would attach to Mr. Green if the woman who bore his name were reduced to distress, absolute privation, and perhaps the workhouse. After several consultations with his solicitor, Mr. Green declined to allow any thing. He professed a total unconcern as to what became of the worthless woman; and in reply to a menace, then delicately put forward or hinted by her legal adviser, that she would be a source of annoyance to her husband, Mr. Green’s solicitor informed his professional friend that his client would not scruple to hand her over to the police if she did so. So ended the negotiation.
Some time had rolled away since the liberation of the prisoner. Mr. Green continued to take considerable interest in her welfare. He frequently visited the residence of her aunt, at Camberwell, and betrayed an almost tender solicitude about the girl. In fact tender is the right part of speech to use as the qualification of solicitude in this case.
The merchant called upon his solicitor one day, and had a long conference with him. Without taking the reader through from the beginning to the end of that private conference, I may inform him that Mr. Green was determined that Sir Cresswell Cresswell should rend asunder the bonds which had been forged by Hymen or the Church-of-England minister, if legal evidence of the infidelity of his wife could be produced, and he imagined there would be very little trouble in getting it. The letter which had been discovered in the piano would of course be very important, but was not sufficient in itself.