Jasper St. Aubyn did honestly intend to do, the next day, what he that night promised; nor did he doubt that he could do it, and so do it, as to save her scatheless, of whom he had not yet grown weary.
But, alas! of so delicate a texture is a woman’s reputation, that the slightest doubt, the smallest shade once cast upon it, though false as hell itself, it shall require more than an angel’s tears to wash away the slain. All cautiously as Jasper had contrived his visits to the chamber of his wife, all guarded as had been his intercourse with her, although he had never dreamed that a suspicion had been awakened in a single mind of the existence of such an intercourse, he had not stolen thither once, nor returned once to his own solitary couch, but keen, curious, prying eyes had followed him.
There was not a maid-servant in the house but knew Miss Theresa’s shame, as all believed it to be; but tittered and triumphed over it in her sleeves, as an excuse, or at least a palliation of her own peccadilloes; but told it, in confidence, to her own lover, Tom, the groom, or Dick, the falconer, until it was the common gossip of the kitchen and the butlery, how the fair and innocent Theresa was Master Jasper’s mistress.
But they nothing dreamed of this; and both fell asleep that night, full of innocent hopes on the one hand, and good determinations—alas! never to be realized, on the other.
The morrow came, and Sir Miles St. Aubyn was consigned to the vault where slept his fathers of so many generations. Among the loud and sincere lamentations of his grateful tenantry and dependents, the silent, heartfelt tears of Theresa, and the pale but constrained sorrow of his son, he was committed earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, to his long last home, by the son of the aged vicar, who had already been inducted to the living, which his father had held so many years before him.
The mournful ceremonial ended, Jasper was musing alone in the old library, considering with himself how he might best arrange the revelation, which he proposed to make that very evening to his household of his hitherto concealed marriage with Theresa, when suddenly a servant entered, and informed him that Peter Verity, the sexton, would be glad to speak six words with his honor, if it would not be too much trouble.
“By no means,” replied Jasper, eagerly, for he foresaw, as he thought, through this man a ready mode of extricating himself from the embarrassment of the disclosure, “admit him instantly.”
The fellow entered; a low, miserable, sneaking scoundrel, even from his appearance; and Jasper felt as if he almost loathed himself that he had ever had to do with so degraded a specimen of mortality. He had need of him, however, and was compelled, therefore, much against his will, to greet him, and speak to him fairly.
“Ha, Verity,” he said, “I am glad you have come, I should have sent for you in the morning, if you had not come up to-night. You have managed that affair for me right well; and I shall not forget it, I assure you. Here are ten guineas for you, as an earnest now, and I shall continue your annuity, though there will be no need for concealment any longer. Still I shall want your assistance, and will pay you for it liberally.”
“I thank your honor, kindly,” answered the fellow, pocketing the gold. “But with regard to the annuity, seeing as how what I’ve done for your honor is a pretty dangerous job, and one as I fancy might touch my life.”