“Betrayed you, as Judas did his master, wretch that I am! I wish I was hung!” cried Annella, amid choking sobs.
“You?—betrayed me? I do not understand you in the least.”
“I set the police on your track, mean scamp, that I am! I told them where to find you! I gave you up! Oh! if there is any marrying down below, they ought to wed me to Judas Iscariot!”
“But—how could you have known that I was Eudora Leaton of whom they were in pursuit?” inquired the deeply-shocked girl.
“I didn’t know it! I was not so irredeemably bad as that either! Perhaps even Judas did not know all the evil he was doing when he betrayed his Master. If I had known it I would have bit my own tongue off rather than told it. But I had to chatter about you and describe you, and tell all I knew of you, until I raised suspicion, and they went and arrested you; and that was the return you got for your kindness to me! Oh, I wish somebody would strangle me, for I am too wicked and unlucky to live!” exclaimed Annella, with streaming tears and suffocating gasps.
“But, poor girl, if you did not know what you were doing you have nothing to reproach yourself with,” said Eudora, kindly stroking her bowed hair; for all this time Annella’s head lay in the lap of the prisoner.
“Yes, yes, I have; conscience is the true judge, and it assures me that ignorance is no excuse; and that instinct should have taught me silence. I came here to confess this to you, Miss Leaton; to let you know how wicked I have been; but not to ask you to pardon me. I do not want you to do that; I do not wish even the Lord to do it—I would much rather be punished,” exclaimed Annella, hysterically.
“Dear girl, do not talk so wildly. You have done nothing to require pardon. If you were unconsciously the means of my arrest, it was not your fault.”
“But if you should perish, I should feel as if I were your murderer. But you shall not perish! I hear that Mr. Montrose is in London, petitioning the Crown for a respite. I hope he will succeed; but even if he should not, mind, Miss Leaton, you shall not perish! I swear it before High Heaven!” exclaimed Annella, wiping her eyes, and looking up.
“You must believe me innocent, or you would never speak with such confidence.”