She fairly wrung her hands in her helpless wrath, and the gems
glittered anew. "But, but," she stammered out, "know you the full
result of this, Harry Wingfield? She, my sister Mary, thinks that
I--I--sent to England for the goods for her; she knows that
I have some acquaintance with what she hath done, and she--she
is blessing me for it, and I cannot deny what she thinks.
I--I--cannot tell her what you, you have done, lest, lest--"
To my great astonishment she stopped short with such a flame of
blushes as I had never seen on her face before, and I was at
a loss to know what she might mean, but supposed that she
considered that the shame of Mistress Mary's wearing finery which
had been paid for out of a convict's purse would be more than she
could put upon her, and yet that she dared not inform her, lest she
refuse to wear the sky-blue robe to the governor's ball, and so
anger Madam Cavendish.
"Madam," I said, "your sister is but blessing you for what you would
have done, and wherefore need you fret?"
"God knows I would," she broke out, passionately. "Every jewel I
possess, the very gown from my back, would I have sold to save her
this, had I but known. Why did she not tell me, why did not she tell
me? Oh, Harry, I pray you to take these jewels."
"I cannot take them, madam," I said. Yet such was her distress I was
sorry for her, though I believed it to be rooted and grounded in
falsity, and that she had no need to regard with such disapprobation
her sister's being indebted to an English gentleman who gave her in
all honour the best he had. Yet could I not yield and take those
jewels, for more reasons than one; not only should I have lost the
dear delight of having served Mary Cavendish, but I had a memory of
wrong which would not suffer me to touch those rings, nor to allow
that innocent maid to be benefited by them, since I cannot say what
dark suspicions seized me when I looked at them.
"My God!" she said, "was ever such a web of falsehood as this? Here
must I hear my sister's blessings upon me for what I have done, and
I knowing all the time that 'twas you, and yet she must not know."
Then again that flame of red overspread her face and neck to the
meet of her muslin kerchief, and I knew not why.