On my arrival at the boarding-house, the note was sent to the lady's room. It read as follows:—
My dear Susan:
Will you hand to the bearer a roll of bank-notes which I left with you.
Edwin.
The lady soon made her appearance. She was young, rather prepossessing, and evidently in delicate health. Finding that I was the bearer of the note, she addressed me, expressing great surprise that her husband had sent a request so unusual; and with an air of independence observed that she did not "know about paying over money under such circumstances to an entire stranger."
Desiring not to mortify her unnecessarily by making explanations in the presence of others, I requested her to step into a vacant room near at hand, and after closing the door, I said in a low tone.
"It is an extremely painful thing for me, Mrs. M——, but as you do not seem inclined to comply with your husband's order, I must tell you plainly that the money was taken from the mails by him. There is no mistake about it. He has had a mail-key which I have just recovered, and has made a full acknowledgment of his numerous depredations. I beg of you to bear this dreadful news with fortitude. No one will think less of you on account of his dishonest conduct."
I expected to see the poor woman faint immediately, and had mentally prepared myself for every emergency, but, a moment after, I should have been more likely to have fallen into that condition, if astonishment could ever produce such an effect, for as soon as I had finished what I was saying, she stood, if possible, more erect than before, and with some fire in her eye, and one arm 'akimbo,' she replied in a spirited manner.
"Well, if he has done that, he's a dam'd fool to own it—I wouldn't!"
She gave up the money, however, soon after, and although the recklessness displayed in the speech above quoted seemed to make it probable that she was implicated in her husband's guilt, it afterwards appeared that this exhibition of "spunk" was due to the impulses of a high-spirited and excitable nature, which sometimes, as in the present instance, broke away from control, and went beyond the bounds of decorum. Such an ebullition of passion indicated, in her case, a less degree of moral laxity than it would have shown in one differently constituted.