Some incident interrupted the conversation here. The image of Miss Jessup was displaced to give room to more important reveries, and I thought no more of her till this night's ramble. I now likewise recollected that the only person suspected of having entered the apartment where lay Mrs. Talbot's unfinished letter was no other than Miss Jessup herself, who was always gadding at unseasonable hours. How was this suspicion removed? By Miss Jessup herself, who, on being charged with the theft, asserted that she was elsewhere engaged at the time.
It was, indeed, exceedingly improbable that Miss Jessup had any agency in this affair,--a volatile, giddy, thoughtless character, who betrayed her purposes on all occasions, from a natural incapacity to keep a secret. And yet had not this person succeeded in keeping her attachment to Mr. Talbot from the knowledge, and even the suspicion, of his wife? Their intercourse had been very frequent since her marriage, and all her sentiments appeared to be expressed with a rash and fearless confidence. Yet, if Hannah Secker's story deserved credit, she had exerted a wonderful degree of circumspection, and had placed on her lips a guard that had never once slept.
I determined to stop at Wilmington next day, on my journey to you, and glean what further information Hannah could give. I ran to her lodgings as soon as I alighted at the inn.
I inquired how long and in what years she lived with Miss Jessup; what reason she had for suspecting her mistress of an attachment to Talbot; what proofs Talbot gave of aversion to her wishes.
On each of these heads her story was tediously minute and circumstantial. She lived with Miss Jessup and her mother before Talbot's marriage with my friend, after the marriage, and during his absence on the voyage which occasioned his death.
The proofs of Miss Jessup's passion were continually occurring in her own family, where she suffered the ill-humour occasioned by her disappointment to display itself without control. Hannah's curiosity was not chastened by much reflection, and some things were overheard which verified the old maxim that "walls have ears." In short, it appears that this poor lady doted on Talbot; that she reversed the usual methods of proceeding, and submitted to his mercy; that she met with nothing but scorn and neglect; that even after his marriage with Jane she sought his society, pestered him with invitations and letters, and directed her walks in such a way as to make their meeting in the street occur as if by accident.
While Talbot was absent, she visited his wife very frequently, but the subjects of their conversation and the degree of intimacy between the two ladies were better known to me than to Hannah.
You may think it strange that my friend never suspected or discovered the state of Miss Jessup's feelings. But, in truth, Jane is the least suspicious or inquisitive of mortals. Her neighbour was regarded with no particular affection; her conversation is usually a vein of impertinence or levity; her visits were always unsought, and eluded as often as decorum would permit; her talk was seldom listened to, and she and all belonging to her were dismissed from recollection as soon as politeness gave leave. Miss Jessup's deficiencies in personal and mental graces, and Talbot's undisguised contempt for her, precluded every sentiment like jealousy.
Jane's life since the commencement of her acquaintance with Miss Jessup was lonely and secluded. Her friends were not of her neighbour's cast, and those tattlers who knew any thing of Miss Jessup's follies were quite unknown to her. No wonder, then, that the troublesome impertinence of this poor woman had never betrayed her to so inattentive an observer as Jane.
After many vague and fruitless inquiries, I asked Hannah if Miss Jessup was much addicted to the pen.