“Silas, you frighten me.”
“I don’t want to, my pretty little dove. I won’t talk o’ it too much arter we is wedded, but I jest had to speak up to-day. Jill, the sort o’ love I can give ’ud go down into hell itself for the sake of sarving the one it loves. I’ve been thinking, my little darlin’, of you, and wondering ef maybe you hadn’t some things as yer’d like to tell me afore we were wed. Love makes us see deep down, and I can guess as you’ve a trouble, little Jill; maybe it’s ’bout your mother, or maybe it’s ’bout that five pounds as I giv’d yer. I know I ha’ no right to ask ’bout the five pounds, but, ef you felt yerself free to tell me, why, I’d like to say that ef you had the blackest secret that ever come to a gel to keep, why it ’ud be all the same to me, I’d love yer jest all the same.”
“I don’t think I ought to tell,” said Jill. “It wor a secret, and you mind, Silas, as it were part of the bargain that I shouldn’t tell yer wot I wanted the money for, and that you shouldn’t ask no questions.”
“I won’t, Jill, ef you’d rayther not tell,” said Silas. “I’d like to know. Afore we stood up in the presence of God, and promised to be true to each other, I’d like well to know anythink as wor troubling yer. For look yere, little Jill, it ain’t you as has done wrong—it ain’t you as has a secret to hide—but maybe there are some belonging to yer as yer wants to shield. Well, Jill, you can’t shield ’em no better way than by telling me, wot is to be yer husband, the whole truth.”
While Silas was speaking, Jill’s face underwent a queer change. It was as if a heavy and very dark mantle of care had dropped from it. She looked up at Silas with a sort of solemn reverence.
“I b’lieve as you’re a good man,” she said. “I b’lieve as you’re the best man I ever met.”
“And yer’ll trust me, Jill?”
“I will, Silas, I’ll trust yer.” She sat down as she spoke, and crossed her hands in her lap. “I’ll tell yer about the money,” she continued. “I know as yer’ll never bring it up to me nor to mine, and, besides, I need name no names. It were this way. A few days afore I come to ask yer to lend me some flowers, a friend—one I thought a sight on, one I—I loved, Silas—give me five pounds to keep faithful, werry faithful, for a mate of his. I put the money into an old stocking with some savings of my own. I was quite light in my heart then, and werry happy. I hadn’t known no trouble then. One morning I got up with the glad heart of a bird inside o’ me. I went into the kitchen jest where you and me is now, and I prepared to go to the market. As I were leaving the house, I ’membered I had no money in my pocket. I went to the bureau. There I found that the old stocking had been opened by some one, and all the money—all my savings, and the five pounds wot my friend had give me to take care for for his pal were gone. There was a letter on the top of the bureau telling me who had took the money. The money—all the money—was took away by some one else wot I loved werry dear. You may s’pose, Silas, as I felt near mad. I wouldn’t and I couldn’t betray the friend wot took the money to the friend wot trusted me with it. That night the one who gave me the money to keep came and asked for it back. I put a test to him, and I saw he could never bear the shock o’ knowing the truth, so—”
Jill paused, there was a break in her voice, she threw her apron over her head.
“So?” continued Silas.