The ways of the hour

by James Fenimore Cooper

“No,” she said, stopping near the grate again, in one of her turns. “I will not do it—it will be risking too much. I can do nothing, just now, that will tell more of me than your sister can state.”

“Should Marie Moulin know you, she must recognise you when you meet.”

“It will be wiser to proceed a little in the dark. I confide all to your powers of negotiation, and shall remain as tranquil as possible, until to-morrow morning. There is still another little affair that I must trouble you with, Mr. Wilmeter. My gold is sequestered, as you know, and I am reduced to an insufficient amount of twos and threes. Might I ask the favour of you to obtain smaller notes for this, without mentioning in whose behalf it is done?”

While speaking, Mary handed through the grate a hundred dollar note of one of the New York banks, with a manner so natural and unpretending, as at once to convince John Wilmeter, ever so willing to be persuaded into anything in her favour, that she was accustomed to the use of money in considerable sums; or, what might be considered so, for the wants and habits of a female. Luckily, he had nearly money enough in his wallet to change the note, making up a small balance that was needed, by drawing five half-eagles from his purse. The prisoner held the last, in the open palm of one of the most beautiful little hands the eyes of man ever rested on.

“This metal has been my bane, in more ways than one, Mr. Wilmeter,” she said, looking mournfully at the coin. “Of one of its evil influences on my fate, I may not speak, now, if ever; but you will understand me when I say, that I fear that gold piece of Italian money is the principal cause of my being where I am.”

“No doubt, it has been considered one of the most material of the facts against you, Miss Monson; though it is by no means conclusive, as evidence, even with the most bitter and prejudiced.”

“I hope not. Now, Mr. Wilmeter, I will detain you no longer; but beg you to do my commission with your sister, as you would do it for her with me. I would write, but my hand is so peculiar, it were better that I did not.”

Mary Monson now dismissed the young man, with the manner of one very familiar with the tone of good society—a term that it is much the fashion to ridicule just now, but which conveys a meaning, that it were better the scoffers understood. This she did, however, after again apologising for the trouble she was giving, and thanking him earnestly for the interest he took in her affairs. We believe in animal magnetism; and cannot pretend to say what is the secret cause of the powerful sympathy that is so often suddenly awakened between persons of different sexes, and, in some instances, between those who are of the same sex; but Mary Monson, by that species of instinct that teaches the female where she has awakened an interest livelier than common, and possibly where she has not, was certainly already aware that John Wilmeter did not regard her with the same cool indifference he would have felt towards an ordinary client of his uncle’s. In thanking him, therefore, her own manner manifested a little of the reflected feeling that such a state of things is pretty certain to produce. She coloured, and slightly hesitated once, as if she paused to choose her terms with more than usual care; but, in the main, acquitted herself well. The parting, betrayed interest, perhaps feeling, on both sides; but nothing very manifest escaped either of our young people.

Never had John Wilmeter been at a greater loss to interpret facts, than he was on quitting the grate. The prisoner was truly the most incomprehensible being he had ever met with. Notwithstanding the fearful nature of the charges against her—charges that might well have given great uneasiness to the firmest man—she actually seemed in love with her prison. It is true, that worthy Mrs. Gott had taken from the place many of its ordinary, repulsive features; but it was still a gaol, and the sun could be seen only through grates, and massive walls separated her that was within, from the world without. As the young man was predisposed to regard everything connected with this extraordinary young woman couleur de rose, however, he saw nothing but the surest signs of innocence in several circumstances that might have increased the distrust of his cooler-headed uncle; but most persons would have regarded the gentle tranquillity that now seemed to soothe a spirit that had evidently been much troubled of late, as a sign that her hand could never have committed the atrocities with which she was charged.

“Is she not a sweet young thing, Mr. Wilmeter?” exclaimed kind Mrs. Gott, while locking the doors after John, on his retiring from the grate.[grate.] “I consider it an honour to Biberry gaol, to have such a prisoner within its walls!”