Lady Bassett was beginning to breathe again, when she was afflicted by an unwelcome discovery.
Mary Wells fainted away so suddenly that, but for Lady Bassett's quick eye and ready hand, she would have fallen heavily.
Lady Bassett laid her head down and loosened her stays, and discovered her condition. She said nothing till the young woman was well, and then she taxed her with it.
Mary denied it plump; but, seeing her mistress's disgust at the falsehood, she owned it with many tears.
Being asked how she could so far forget herself, she told Lady Bassett she had long been courted by a respectable young man; he had come to the village, bound on a three years' voyage, to bid her good-by, and, what with love and grief at parting, they had been betrayed into folly; and now he was on the salt seas, little dreaming in what condition he had left her: “and,” said she, “before ever he can write to me, and I to him, I shall be a ruined girl; that is why I wanted to put an end to myself; I will, too, unless I can find some way to hide it from the world.”
Lady Bassett begged her to give up those desperate thoughts; she would think what could be done for her. Lady Bassett could say no more to her just then, for she was disgusted with her.
But when she came to reflect that, after all, this was not a lady, and that she appeared by her own account to be the victim of affection and frailty rather than of vice, she made some excuses; and then the girl had laid aside her trouble, her despair, and given her sorrowful mind to nursing and comforting Sir Charles. This would have outweighed a crime, and it made the wife's bowels yearn over the unfortunate girl. “Mary,” said she, “others must judge you; I am a wife, and can only see your fidelity to my poor husband. I don't know what I shall do without you, but I think it is my duty to send you to him if possible. You are sure he really loves you?”
“Me cross the seas after a young man?” said Mary Wells. “I'd as lieve hang myself on the nighest tree and make an end. No, my lady, if you are really my friend, let me stay here as long as I can—I will never go downstairs to be seen—and then give me money enough to get my trouble over unbeknown to my sister; she is all my fear. She is married to a gentleman, and got plenty of money, and I shall never want while she lives, and behave myself; but she would never forgive me if she knew. She is a hard woman; she is not like you, my lady. I'd liever cut my hand off than I'd trust her as I would you.”
Lady Bassett was not quite insensible to this compliment; but she felt uneasy.
“What, help you to deceive your sister?”