This declaration profoundly agitated me, so far did it go to confirm me in my suspicions. "I asked you a question a few moments since," I said, "and you said you would wait a little before you answered it. Will you answer it now?"
"Your question was, 'Had a painful truth been revealed to Mr. Carew when he was a single gentleman, whether it might have averted evil consequences to others.'"
"You have stated it correctly."
"It might have done," she said. "But it appeared to me that Mr. Carew was the last man in the world to attract a woman's heart. I often said to myself, 'He will never marry.'"
"You were mistaken."
"I was; and I say again I am sorry." She took from her pocket the letter I had given her from Mr. Carew, and read it carefully and slowly, in a new light it seemed to me. Even when she had finished the perusal she did not immediately speak, but sat in silent thought a while.
"I am not a tender-hearted woman," she said, "and not easy to move when I pledge myself. Mr. Carew's father behaved well to me, and fulfilled his promise of providing for me if it was in his power to do so after the death of his wife. I, on my part, kept the two promises I made him when I entered his service. The first was not to leave his service during the lifetime of his wife; the second not to divulge, without powerful cause, the secret of the unhappy inheritance he feared his wife had transmitted to their son. When I bade farewell to Mr. Gabriel Carew in Rosemullion, I saw no such cause for divulging the secret, and I declined to satisfy my young master. It may be different now, and I may be tempted to satisfy you. "
"Out of your sense of justice?" I observed.
"Not entirely. Mr. Carew's letter contains the offer of a reward."
I met her instantly and with eagerness. "I am prepared to pay it."