"Partly. There is always more than one reason for a woman's action. In this case there was a bribe. I confess that I have always ardently desired jewels. I cannot have too many jewels. He promised, Jack, that I should have them all. Perhaps—I do not know—the promise of the jewels decided me. Oh! Jack, they were wonderful! No such bribe was ever offered to a woman before."
I gazed upon her with amazement. Truly, an explanation complete! Yet, what a confession for a proud woman to make! Love that made her trample on honour and truth and virtue, and a bribe to quicken her footsteps!
"And now," I said, "you are willing to make this story public."
"I have thought about the business a good deal. It has caused me more annoyance than you would believe." ("Annoyance!" She spoke of "annoyance!") "Besides, I have been cruelly abused. I have been the cause of that poor girl losing a great part—perhaps the whole—of her fortune. I have been robbed of the jewels. He swore to me, a dozen times, that he has never had them. I may by tardy confession save something from the wreck for that poor girl. He has wronged me in every way—in ways that no woman will, or can, forgive. I revenge my wrongs by making him a beggar a few weeks, or months, before he can come to the end of his money."
So in this distracted way she talked till one could not tell whether she was most moved by the thought of revenge, or by pity for Molly, or by a wholesome repentance of her sin.
"Jack," she said, "your honest face is pulled out as long as my arm. I could laugh if I were not so miserable. Tell me what I should do next. Mind, I will do exactly what you bid me do. I have lived so long among kites, hawks, crows, and birds of prey, with foul creatures and crawling reptiles, that merely to talk to an honest man softens and subdues me. Take me in the humour, Jack. To-morrow, or next day, should the idea of the man possess my soul again; if he should stand over me and take my hand, I know not—I know not what would happen. Perhaps, even for Molly's sake, I could not resist him. I am but a poor, weak, miserable woman. And he has led me hither, and sent me thither, and made me his slave so long, that he has become part of my life. Quick, then, Jack! Tell me what to do."
"Come with me," I said.
So she wrapped herself in a long cloak—not of pink silk—and she put on a domino and I led her to Mr. Redman's office. And here I begged her to let me set down in writing what she had told me but in fewer words, while Mr. Redman stood over me and read what I wrote and as I wrote it.
"The story, your ladyship," he said, "is the most remarkable that I have ever heard. You will now, in the presence of witnesses—my clerk and one whom he will bring from the customhouse will serve. So—they will sign without knowing what the paper contains."
So she signed in the same bold running hand that we had seen in the registers.