"'Will you undertake it? Can you go through with it without shrinking?' was what the former had said.
"'I will undertake it, and I can go through with it,' was what the latter had replied.
"Frightened at a discovery which might mean nothing and which might mean misery to a mistress the day of whose marriage was scarcely a month away, the negro held his breath, determined to hear more. He was immediately rewarded by catching the words: 'You are a brave girl and my queen!' and then something like a prayer for a kiss, or some such favor, as a seal to their compact. But to this she returned a vigorous 'No,' followed by the mysterious sentence: 'I shall give you nothing till I am dead, and then I will give you everything.'
"After which they made a move as if to separate, which action so alarmed the now deeply disconcerted negro that he drew back in haste, hiding behind some neighboring bushes till they had passed him and disappeared, he out of the gate, and she through the small side entrance into the house. This was the previous night, and for nearly twenty-four hours the poor negro had tortured himself as to what he should do with the information thus surreptitiously gained. He lacked the courage to tell his mistress, and finally he had thought of me, who was her best friend, and who must have known there was something amiss with Miss Leighton, or why had I not married her when everything was ready and the minister waiting with his book in his hand?
"Not answering this insinuation, I put to him one or two of the many questions that were burning in my brain. Had he told any of the other servants what he had seen? And did Miss Dudleigh look as if she suspected there was anything wrong?
"He answered that he had not dared to speak a word of it even to his wife; and as for Miss Dudleigh, she was ill so much of the time that it was hard to tell whether she had any other cause for uneasiness or not. He only knew that she was greatly changed since this miserable deceiver came into the house.
"I believed him, and amid all my struggle and wrath tried to fix my mind upon her alone. I succeeded only partially, but enough to enable me to write this line, which I entreated him to carry to her:
'Honored Miss Dudleigh—You will forgive me if I overstep the bounds of friendship in yielding to the inner voice which compels me to say that if before or on your marriage day you need advice or protection, you may command both from
Your respectful servant,
"I did not expect a reply to this note, and I did not receive any. I thought I went as far as my position toward her allowed, but I have questioned it since—questioned if I should not have told her what the negro had heard and seen, and let her own judgment decide her fate. But I was not in my right mind in those days. I was too much a part of all this misery to be a fair judge of my own duty; and then the mysterious nature of Miss Leighton's remark, the incomprehensibility of the words—'I shall give you nothing till I am dead, and then I shall give you everything'—added such unreality to the scene, and awakened such curious conjectures, that I did not know where any of us stood, or to what especial misery the future pointed.