"It is not at all necessary, my good boy; I am perfectly well. This is, I believe, the only note that can be identified as one of those you lost; these smaller ones (she pointed to three, of one, two, and four pounds each, which Ellen had received at long intervals from Mrs. Langford) have nothing to do with it?"
"No, madam, and that—that may not—"
"We can not doubt it, Robert, I have its number; I need not detain you, however, any longer. Take care of these broken fragments, and if they can be repaired, see that it is done. Here is Miss Hamilton's note and parcel. I believe you are to wait for an answer, at all events inquire. I need not ask you to be silent on this discovery, till I have spoken to Miss Fortescue, or to trust my promise to make your innocence fully known."
"Not by the exposure of Miss Ellen! Oh, madam, this is but one of them, the smallest one—it may have come to her by the merest chance—see how stained it is with damp—for the sake of mercy, oh, madam, spare her and yourself too!" and in the earnestness of his supplication Robert caught hold of her dress, hardly knowing himself how he had found courage so to speak. His mistress's lips quivered.
"It is a kind thought, Robert, and if justice to you and mercy to the guilty can, by any extenuating clause unknown to me now, be united, trust me, they shall. Now go."
He obeyed in silence, and still Mrs. Hamilton changed not that outward seeming of rigid calm. She continued to put every paper and letter away (merely retaining the notes), locked the drawer, took possession of the key, and then retired to her own room, where for half an hour she remained alone.
It is not ours to lift the vail from that brief interval. We must have performed our task badly indeed, if our readers can not so enter into the lofty character, the inward strivings and outward conduct of Mrs. Hamilton, as not to imagine more satisfactorily to themselves than we could write it, the heart-crushing agony of that one half hour; and anguish as it was, it did but herald deeper. There was not even partial escape for her, as there would have been had her husband been at home. Examination of the culprit, whose mysterious conduct was so fatally explained, that she did not even dare hope this was the only missing note she had appropriated—compelled confession of the use to which it had been applied—public acknowledgment of Robert's perfect truth and innocence, all crowded on her mind like fearful specters of pain and misery, from which there could be no escape; and from whom did they spring? Ellen! the child of her adoption, of her love, whose character she had so tried to mold to good—whose young life she had so sought to make happier than its earliest years—for whom she had so hoped, so prayed—so trusted—had borne with anxiety and care; tended in physical suffering with such untiring gentleness, such exhaustless love: and now!