“She made me write you a line or two that night,” continued Mr. Parmalee—­“that night which she thought her last—­and she begged me to find you and give it to you, with her picture.  I have it yet; here they are, both.”

He drew from his pocket the picture and a note, and gave them into my lady’s hand.

“She didn’t die,” he resumed; “she got better, and I took her to London, left her there, and came down here.  Now, my lady, I don’t make no pretense of being better than I am; I took this matter up in the way of speculation, in the view to make money out of it, and nothing else.  I said to myself:  ’Here’s this young lady, the bride of a rich baronet; it ain’t likely she’s been and told him all this, and it ain’t likely her pa has died and left her ignorant of it.  Now, what’s to hinder my making a few honest pounds out of it, at the same time I do a good turn for this poor, sufferin’. sinful critter here?  That’s what I said, my lady, and that’s what I am here for.  I’m a poor man, and I live by my wits, and a stroke of business is a stroke of business, no matter how far it’s out of the ordinary run.  Your husband don’t know this here story; you don’t want him to know it, and you come down handsomely and I’ll keep your secret.”

“You have rather spoiled your marketable commodity, then, Mr. Parmalee.  It would have paid you better not to have shared your secret with Sybilla Silver.”

“She’s told you, has she?” said the artist, rather surprised.  “Now that’s what I call mean.  You don’t think she’ll peach to Sir Everard, do you?”

“I think it extremely likely that she will.  She hates me, Mr. Parmalee, and Miss Silver would do a good deal for a person she hates.  You should have waited until she became Mrs. Parmalee before making her the repository of your valuable secrets.”

“It’s no good talking about it now, however,” said Mr. Parmalee, rather doggedly.  “I’ve told her, and it can’t be helped.  And now, my lady, I don’t want to be caught here, and it’s getting late, and what are you going to give a fellow for all his trouble?”

“What will hardly repay you,” said my lady, “for I have very little of my own, as you doubtless have informed yourself ere this.  What I have you have earned and shall receive.  At the most it will not exceed three hundred pounds.  Of my husband’s money not one farthing shall any one ever receive from me for keeping a secret of mine.”

“I must have more than that,” he said, resolutely.  “Three hundred pounds is nothing to a lady like you.”

“It is all I have—­all I can give you, and to give you that I must sell the trinkets my dear dead father gave me.  But it is for his sake I do it—­to preserve his secret.  My jewels, my diamonds, my husband’s gifts I will not touch, nor one farthing of his money will you ever receive.  You entirely mistake me, Mr. Parmalee.  My secret I will keep from him while I can; I swore a solemn oath by my father’s death-bed to do so.  But to pay you with his money—­to bribe you to deceive him with his gold—­I never will.  I would die first.”