As I pulled up the river, for that day I was engaged to dine with the Wharncliffes, I resolved to call upon Mary Stapleton, and ascertain by her deportment whether she had become that heartless jilt which she was represented, and if so, to persuade Tom, if I succeeded in obtaining his discharge, to think no more about her; I felt so vexed and angry with her, that after I landed, I walked about a few minutes before I went to the house, that I might recover my temper. When I walked up the stairs I found Mary sitting over a sheet of paper, on which she had been writing. She looked up as I came in, and I perceived that she had been crying. “Mary,” said I, “how well you have kept the promise you made to me when last we met! See what trouble and sorrow you have brought upon all parties except yourself.”
“Except myself—no, Mr Faithful, don’t except myself, I am almost mad—I believe that I am mad—for surely such folly as mine is madness;” and Mary wept bitterly.
“There is no excuse for your behaviour, Mary—it is unpardonably wicked. Tom sacrificed all for your sake—he even deserted, and desertion is death by the law. Now what have you done?—taken advantage of his strong affection to drive him to intemperance, and induce him, in despair, to enlist for a soldier. He sails for the West Indies to fill up the ranks of a regiment thinned by the yellow fever, and will perhaps never return again—you will then have been the occasion of his death. Mary, I have come to tell you that I despise you.”
“I despise and hate myself,” replied Mary, mournfully; “I wish I were in my grave. Oh, Mr Faithful, do for God’s sake—do get him back. You can, I know you can—you have money and everything.”
“If I do, it will not be for your benefit, Mary, for you shall trifle with him no more. I will not try for his discharge unless he faithfully promises never to speak to you again.”
“You don’t say that—you don’t mean that!” cried Mary, sweeping the hair with her hand back from her forehead—and her hand still remaining on her head—“O God! O God! what a wretch I am! Hear me, Jacob, hear me,” cried she, dropping on her knees, and seizing my hands; “only get him his discharge—only let me once see him again, and I swear by all that’s sacred, that I will beg his pardon on my knees as I now do yours. I will do everything—anything—if he will but forgive me, for I cannot, I will not live without him.”
“If this is true, Mary, what madness could have induced you to have acted as you have?”
“Yes,” replied Mary, rising from her knees, “madness, indeed—more than madness to treat so cruelly one for whom I only care to live. You say Tom loves me; I know he does; but he does not love me as I do him. O, my God! my heart will break!” After a pause, Mary resumed. “Read what I have written to him—I have already written as much in another letter. You will see that if he cannot get away, I have offered to go out with him as his wife; that is, if he will have such a foolish, wicked girl as I am.”
I read the letter; it was as she said, praying forgiveness, offering to accompany him, and humiliating herself as much as it was possible. I was much affected. I returned the letter.
“You can’t despise me so much as I despise myself,” continued Mary; “I hate, I detest myself for my folly. I recollect now how you used to caution me when a girl. Oh, mother, mother, it was a cruel legacy you left to your child, when you gave her your disposition. Yet why should I blame her? I must blame myself.”