‘You are in an unhappy and terrible position, and you have very little time to spare, I think?’ added the girl.
Bertha looked at her wonderingly, for she could not recall ever having seen her before.
‘I mean,’ explained the girl, who observed that Bertha was surprised at this acquaintance on the part of a stranger with her affairs—‘I mean with regard to that man, Jasper Rodley.—Yes, I know all about it; and I want, not only to be your friend, but to see that evil-doing meets with its just reward.’
The girl was poorly dressed; but her accent and mode of expression were those of an educated woman, and, moreover, she had such a thin, sorrow-lined face, that Bertha felt she could trust her.
‘Let me be with you to-day,’ continued the girl, ‘and you may thank me for it some day. I have long wanted to see you, and have waited here for you often. Never mind who I am—that you shall find out later.’
‘Very well,’ said Bertha, who naturally clung to the friendship of one of her own sex. ‘I am going to see Mr Symonds—my betrothed.’
‘The gentleman who was obliged to leave Faraday’s Bank, four years ago; yes, I remember,’ said the girl.
They crossed the market-place together, and were soon at Harry Symonds’ lodgings. The servant, in reply to Bertha’s inquiries, said that the young man was so far recovered as to be able to sit up, but that the doctor had ordered him to keep perfectly quiet and to be free from all excitement. So Bertha wrote him a note describing all that had taken place, and begging for an immediate answer. In the course of twenty minutes, the servant handed her a piece of paper, on which was scrawled as follows:
My dearest Love—This is written with my left hand, as my right is yet in a sling. I wish I could say all that I want to; but as every moment is of value to you, I will simply keep to business. Take a postchaise home; get the money out of the cavern, and send it here. John Sargent the fisherman is to be trusted; let him come back with it in the postchaise. I will return it to the bank, making up out of my savings whatever difference there is from the original amount stolen. Lose no time, my darling, and God bless you!—Ever your affectionate
Harry.