"'Everything ready to leave the moment papers arrive. No fear of failure now.'
"Well," she exclaimed, making no attempt to conceal her smile of triumph, "surely you could desire no more?"
"Desire no more!" repeated Carlita, hoarsely. "You don't understand; you can't—you can't! For God's sake, think for me! This must be stopped at once—at once!"
"Are you mad?" demanded Jessica, coldly. "What are you talking of?"
"Of this hideous crime that I have brought about!" gasped Carlita. "Those papers must never reach him—reach Stolliker. It must be prevented at the cost of my very life, if needs be! We must give up everything to purchase silence from Meriaz. Oh, Jessica, for the love of Heaven, help me!"
"Help you defend a murderer? Help you protect a criminal?"
"Don't—don't! You don't understand, I tell you. It was I who drove him to it—I who should be punished, if punishment must come to any one! He loved me. I did not know the meaning of the word then, but I know now—my God, so cruelly well! Jessica, listen, and then comprehend all my humiliation, if you can. I—I, who was the betrothed wife of Olney Winthrop—I, who swore that infamous oath to the dead—I, who have mercilessly hounded a fellow-creature to the very jaws of perdition, love him so well that I would take his crime upon my own shoulders—yes, upon my own soul, and stand in the presence of God, stained and branded, to save him! I am ready to stand your contempt, your loathing, if you will but help me! Pity me—oh, merciful God, pity me!"
She had fallen upon her knees at Jessica's feet, her head bowed in her hands, her suffering too deep for tears. But the woman witness did not offer to touch her; she stepped back and folded her hands coldly.
"You are too late," she said, with rigid cruelty. "The papers will be in Stolliker's hands early tomorrow morning."
A cry of horror left Carlita's lips.