“Don’t touch me, Edith, till you have heard my story, then curse me if you will and let me die; but first open that square box there in the corner, and in my writing desk find the letter you wrote to him,—you know,—the letter which I kept,—you remember it.”
Edith remembered it well, and she trembled in every joint as she did her mother’s bidding, and brought the time-soiled letter, which seemed to burn the hand which held it, and to communicate to her a presentiment of the terrible shock awaiting her. That her mother’s story had something to do with her past life she was sure, but she never dreamed of the truth as she brought the letter and offered it to her mother.
“No, it’s for you; keep it, Edith. You will want it some time, perhaps, to prove that you at least meant fair. I have written a few lines on it myself to show your innocence,” Mrs. Barrett said, and Edith put the letter mechanically into the pocket of her dressing-gown, while her mother continued: “Edith, before I begin, promise me one thing,—not your forgiveness,—I do not expect that,—but promise to do what I ask when my story is finished.”
“How can I promise to do a thing unless I know it will be right?” Edith asked.
“It is right,” Mrs. Barrett said; “I’d do it myself, only I am old and sick and going to die, and I did not think about it in England as I do here on my death-bed. But you are young; you have health and money and time. You can look it up, and you will, Edith. You will when you know.”
She spoke in a whisper, and Edith shook from head to foot, as she, too, said in a whisper:
“Yes, mother, I will.”
She did not know what she was pledged to do. She only knew that the terror of something horrible was upon her, benumbing her faculties, chilling her blood, and forcing her heart into her throat, which the iron hand held so firmly. It was something about the child, her little girl,—something about the way it died; and her brown eyes were black in the intensity of her feelings as she fastened them upon her mother, who, cowering beneath that gaze, cried out:
“Look away, Edith; look somewhere else, and not at me, or I can never tell you.”
But the eyes did not move, and shutting her own, the wretched woman began: