Reginald was asking himself if this could be true, or was it a maneuver to put her favorite Compton over his head.
Lady Bassett looked up, and saw this paltry suspicion in his face. She dried her tears directly, and went to a bureau, unlocked it, and produced the manuscript confession she had prepared for her husband.
She bade Reginald observe the superscription and the date.
When he had done so, she took her scissors and opened it for him.
“Read what I wrote to my beloved husband at a time when I expected soon to appear before my Judge.”
She then sank upon the sofa, and lay there like a log; only, from time to time, during the long reading, tears trickled from her eyes.
Reginald read the whole story, and saw the facts must be true: more than that, being young, and a man, he could not entirely resist the charm of a narrative in which a lady told at full the love, the grief, the terror, the sufferings, of her heart, and the terrible temptation under which she had gone astray.
He laid it down at last, and drew a long breath.
“It's a devil of a job for me,” said he; “but I can't blame you. You sold that Dick Bassett, and I hate him. But what is to become of me?”
“What I offer you is a life in which you will be happier than you ever could be at Huntercombe. I mean to buy you vast pasture-fields in Australia, and cattle to feed. Those noble pastures will be bounded only by wild forests and hills. You will have swift horses to ride over your own domain, or to gallop hundreds of miles at a stretch, if you like. No confinement there; no fences and boundaries; all as free as air. No monotony: one week you can dig for gold, another you can ride among your flocks, another you can hunt. All this in a climate so delightful that you can lie all night in the open air, without a blanket, under a new firmament of stars, not one of which illumines the dull nights of Europe.”