“That you shall, with all my heart, Thomas, though I don’t quite see what your meaning is. But I can tell you this: I have never felt satisfied about poor Jane’s leaving me as she did, and yet I do not see that I could have acted otherwise than I did at the time; but I have wished her back again a thousand times, you may tell her, especially as I fear there were some base means used to get her away.”
“How does your ladyship mean?”
“Why, have you not heard, Thomas, that John Hollands the butler has absconded? He left us on a pretence of visiting some of his relations, with his master’s leave, last December; and we find now that he has been robbing us for years, and cheating the trades-people, and even selling some of Sir Lionel’s choice curiosities, and putting the money into his own pocket. It is this that has worried Sir Lionel till he is quite ill. We have had, too, to make an entire change of all our servants; for we found that all of them had been, more or less, sharing in Hollands’ wickedness and deceit.”
“And was your ladyship’s own maid, Georgina, one of these?”
“O Thomas! She was worse, if possible, even than Hollands. Before he left I detected her in lying, thieving, and intemperance, besides abominable hypocrisy, and was thankful to get her out of the house.”
“Well, my lady, I’m truly sorry for all this; but perhaps it shows that poor Jane’s story may have been true after all.”
“Indeed it does; but still I have never been able to understand Jane’s conduct when I found the bracelet in her hands. If she had only produced the other bracelet, and explained in a simple way how she came by them, or if the other bracelet had been found, that might have made a difference; but it has never been seen or heard of from that day to this.”
“I can now explain all to your ladyship’s full satisfaction,” said Bradly.
“Indeed, Thomas, I shall be only too thankful, for I now know both Georgina and John Hollands to have been utterly untruthful, and I could almost as soon have doubted my own senses as Jane’s truthfulness and honesty. But appearances did certainly seem very much against her.”
“Your ladyship says nothing but the simple truth, but I can explain it all now from John Hollands’ own confession.”