“She covered her face with her hands and wept softly, and then said, in a voice shaken by emotion, ’You remember the young girl, Clemence Graystone, who interested you so strangely, and whom I engaged as governess, with your sanction.  It was to destroy her happiness that this wicked act was consummated.  For a reason which her woman’s heart will too surely tell her, I conceived from the first a violent dislike to the young teacher.  She had not been long in my employ before I began watching her closely, in the hope of detecting some fault that would render a sufficient and plausible excuse for my discharging her.  I knew that in such straitened circumstances the position she held was a lucrative one, and so great was my antipathy to one who had never knowingly injured me, that I could not bear the thought of benefiting this orphan girl in the smallest degree.  At last, coming to the conclusion that there was not the slightest hope of discovering anything against her that would bear inspection, and discovering that she was every day growing more and more in favor with the entire household, I resolved quietly to resort to artifice to accomplish that which I could not hope to bring about in any other way.  It was very easy to steal into the school-room after hours, unobserved, and, after some practice, imitate her handwriting closely enough to have it pass for genuine with any one not familiar with it.  This I did, and then discharged her.  When you asked the reason, I placed in your hands that which was in itself enough to blast the character of a young, unprotected girl.  But I repented,’ she said, excitedly, watching my face, which at this unlooked-for revelation must have expressed all the horror and repugnance I felt.  ’Wilfred, don’t quite despise me.  Forgive me, or I cannot die in peace.’

“I remembered her condition, then, and soothed her as I would an infant.  Against my entreaties, almost commands, she proceeded with the harrowing story:  ’I felt supremely wretched after I committed this wrong deed, and at length, after some months, I traced the girl out in the hope of doing something to aid her, and thus quiet my uneasy conscience.  But she had gone from her former place of residence.  A woman who gave her name as Bailey told me all I wished to know, and I felt quite relieved and happy.  She said the girl’s mother had died, and that after a long illness this Clemence Graystone had gone away with a gentleman, giving me to understand that I need not feel troubled about her being in want, for the girl was not friendless, but had those to aid her of the same sort as herself.  Of course, if this young governess were really unworthy of all this anxiety, as the woman had intimated, then I had not done so much mischief as I feared, and there was not so much to regret.  I threw off the recollection, and the whole circumstance had completely faded from my memory, when I learned the truth of the matter from a seamstress who had lodgings in the same building.