"Recollect yourself. I will give you a moment to recall the past. Think over all that has occurred since your original acquaintance with Mrs. Talbot or her husband, and tell me, solemnly and truly, whether you discern not the cause of his mistake. Tell me whether you know not the unhappy person whom some delusive prospect of advantage, some fatal passion, has tempted to belie the innocent."
I am no reader of faces, my friend. I drew no inferences from the confusion sufficiently visible in Miss Jessup. She made no attempt to interrupt me, but quickly withdrew her eye from my gaze; hung her head upon her bosom; a hectic flush now and then shot across her check. But these would have been produced by a similar address, delivered with much solemnity and emphasis, in any one, however innocent.
I believe there was no anger in my looks. Supposing her to have been the author of this stratagem, it awakened in me not resentment, but pity. I paused; but she made no answer to my expostulation. At length I resumed, with augmented earnestness, grasping her hand:--
"Tell me, I conjure you, what you know. Be not deterred by any self-regard; but, indeed, how can your interest be affected by clearing up a mistake so fatal to the happiness of one for whom you have always professed a friendly regard?
"Will your own integrity or reputation be brought into question? In order to exculpate your friend, will it be necessary to accuse yourself? Have you been guilty in withholding the discovery? Have you been guilty in contriving the fraud? Did your own hand pen the fatal letter which is now brought in evidence against my friend? Were you yourself guilty of counterfeiting hands, in order to drive the husband into a belief of his wife's perfidy?"
A deadly paleness overspread her countenance at these words. I pitied her distress and confusion, and waited not for an answer which she was unable to give.
"Yes, Miss Jessup, I well know your concern in this transaction. I mean not to distress you; I mean not to put you to unnecessary shame; I have no indignation or enmity against you. I came hither not to injure or disgrace you, but to confer on you a great and real benefit; to enable you to repair the evil which your infatuation has occasioned. I want to relieve your conscience from the sense of having wronged one that never wronged you.
"Do not imagine that in all this I am aiming at my own selfish advantage. This is not the mother's only objection to me, or only proof of that frailty she justly ascribes to me. To prove me innocent of this charge will not reconcile her to her daughter's marriage. It will only remove one insuperable impediment to her reconciliation with her daughter.
"Mrs. Fielder is, at this moment, not many steps from this spot. Permit me to attend you to her. I will introduce the subject. I will tell her that you come to clear her daughter from an unmerited charge, to confess that the unfinished letter was taken by you, and that, by additions in a feigned hand, you succeeded in making that an avowal of abandoned wickedness, which was originally innocent, at least, though perhaps indiscreet."
All this was uttered in a very rapid but solemn accent. I gave her no time to recollect herself; no leisure for denial or evasion. I talked as if her agency was already ascertained; and the feelings she betrayed at this abrupt and unaware attack confirmed my suspicions.