“Have you any brothers or sisters?”
“I was an only child.”
“Are you married or single?”
“I have never been married.”
“And now, finally, is there any fact or circumstance which you would like to mention and have recorded? For, you must bear in mind, you will shortly have forgotten everything connected with your past; and if there is anything you will wish to remember, you had better tell it to me now, and I will make a memorandum of it.”
“There is nothing that I shall wish to remember,” she replied. “Nothing but what I shall be glad to forget. However, I fancy what you say is but a hint to the effect that you are curious to know my history. I have no objection in telling it to you. It is not an edifying history. Most women, I daresay, would be ashamed to tell it; but I have got beyond even pretending to feel ashamed of anything; and if you desire to hear it, you have only to say so.”
“On the contrary,” I rejoined, “you must not think of telling it. It would excite you and fatigue you; whereas it is of the highest importance for the success of our operation that you should be at rest in mind as well as in body. Besides, and irrespective of that consideration, it is better that neither my sister, nor I, nor indeed any living person, should hear it. You yourself will in a little while have forgotten it. What right has anybody else to remember it?”
“Oh, well, you will doubtless find the gist of it in the morning paper. It will in all likelihood be printed with an account of my escape from the Penitentiary,” she returned.
At which insinuation my sister Josephine cried out, “You little know my brother. There is indeed something about your escape in the morning paper; but the instant he discovered the headlines of the article, he said, 'This is something, Josephine, that neither you nor I must read.' And he threw the paper into the fireplace, and applied a match to it.”
The woman made no answer.