In short, it ended as we all know by those twice guilty papers being transferred into the hands of the innocent; and Jane Marryott—bound by the promise of strict secrecy, which she so resolutely maintained inviolate—left the house without any member of the household having been made aware of her identity, with the unblessed cause of fresh misfortune in her possession. With the unhappy sequel we are acquainted.
Six months had passed, and Mabel Marryott lay groaning on a bed of agony. The pains of hell truly had got hold of her, and conscience—faint foretaste of the never dying worm, rose up to torment her "before her time," with the dark catalogue of remembered sin—sin unrepented, and therefore unforgiven. She would not turn to the one sure fountain, open for sin and for uncleaness. She even repulsed all offers of spiritual ministration from those members of the household who had thought and feeling, to see the awful nature of the dying woman's position.
"No, she wanted no clergymen, they could avail her nothing—could not undo one of the sins she had committed." But at length one day, she sent to desire Eugene Trevor would come himself and speak to her in private. He came, and lifting herself up with difficulty in her bed, she turned her ghastly countenance towards her foster-son as he stood by her side, and fixing her sunken eyes upon him, addressed him thus:
"Eugene Trevor, my daughter is to be tried this week at —— for forgery."
"So I was sorry to hear, Mabel; but there seems, I think, every chance of her being acquitted."
"Chance—yes; but I am not going to leave it to chance, and die with this too on my conscience. I have been a bad mother from the first, I forsook the child at my breast for the hire of a stranger, and cast her on the world to shift for herself in toil and trouble; and last of all, by my stolen charity have brought this curse upon her. Yes, Eugene Trevor," she added, emphatically, "I stole those notes from your father's chest, and gave them to the girl—but who forged them?"
Eugene Trevor started as if an adder had stung him; and turning ashy pale, sunk down upon a chair that stood near.
"What—what in the name of Heaven do you mean, Marryott?" he stammered forth.
"Eugene Trevor, do not try to deceive a dying woman. I have confessed my part of the business, do not deny yours. There was not much which passed between you and your father that night ten years ago, that I did not overhear, and which now put together, would be enough to commit you—but do not fear, I am not going to betray you, only do my bidding; go to —— and get that girl free—it matters little to me, who shall be dead perhaps, before the morning, what I'm thought of; go and tell them that I gave the notes, and that she was ignorant of this falsity—go, get her off, and come back and tell me she is free, and I die silent; if not, as sure as I lie here a dying woman, I send for a magistrate and tell him all."