She was a woman of a admirable address, and wanted nobody to introduce
her; she told her tale much better than I shall be able to tell it for
her, for she was a mistress of her tongue, as I have said already. She
told him that she came, though a stranger, with a single design of
doing him a service and he should find she had no other end in it; that
as she came purely on so friendly an account, she begged promise from
him, that if he did not accept what she should officiously propose he
would not take it ill that she meddled with what was not her business.
She assured him that as what she had to say was a secret that belonged
to him only, so whether he accepted her offer or not, it should remain
a secret to all the world, unless he exposed it himself; nor should his
refusing her service in it make her so little show her respect as to do
him the least injury, so that he should be entirely at liberty to act
as he thought fit.
He looked very shy at first, and said he knew nothing that related to
him that required much secrecy; that he had never done any man any
wrong, and cared not what anybody might say of him; that it was no part
of his character to be unjust to anybody, nor could he imagine in what
any man could render him any service; but that if it was so
disinterested a service as she said, he could not take it ill from any
one that they should endeavour to serve him; and so, as it were, left
her a liberty either to tell him or not to tell, as she thought fit.
She found him so perfectly indifferent, that she was almost afraid to
enter into the point with him; but, however, after some other
circumlocutions she told him that by a strange and unaccountable
accident she came to have a particular knowledge of the late unhappy
adventure he had fallen into, and that in such a manner, that there was
nobody in the world but herself and him that were acquainted with it,
no, not the very person that was with him.
He looked a little angrily at first. 'What adventure?' said he.
'Why,' said she, 'of your being robbed coming from Knightbr----;
Hampstead, sir, I should say,' says she. 'Be not surprised, sir,' says
she, 'that I am able to tell you every step you took that day from the
cloister in Smithfield to the Spring Garden at Knightsbridge, and
thence to the ---- in the Strand, and how you were left asleep in the
coach afterwards. I say, let not this surprise you, for, sir, I do not
come to make a booty of you, I ask nothing of you, and I assure you the
woman that was with you knows nothing who you are, and never shall; and
yet perhaps I may serve you further still, for I did not come barely to
let you know that I was informed of these things, as if I wanted a
bribe to conceal them; assure yourself, sir,' said she, 'that whatever
you think fit to do or say to me, it shall be all a secret as it is, as
much as if I were in my grave.' He was astonished at her discourse, and said gravely to her, 'Madam,
you are a stranger to me, but it is very unfortunate that you should be
let into the secret of the worst action of my life, and a thing that I
am so justly ashamed of, that the only satisfaction of it to me was,
that I thought it was known only to God and my own conscience.' 'Pray,
sir,' says she, 'do not reckon the discovery of it to me to be any part
of your misfortune. It was a thing, I believe, you were surprised
into, and perhaps the woman used some art to prompt you to it; however,
you will never find any just cause,' said she, 'to repent that I came
to hear of it; nor can your own mouth be more silent in it that I have
been, and ever shall be.' 'Well,' says he, 'but let me do some justice to the woman too; whoever
she is, I do assure you she prompted me to nothing, she rather declined
me. It was my own folly and madness that brought me into it all, ay,
and brought her into it too; I must give her her due so far. As to
what she took from me, I could expect no less from her in the condition
I was in, and to this hour I know not whether she robbed me or the
coachman; if she did it, I forgive her, and I think all gentlemen that
do so should be used in the same manner; but I am more concerned for
some other things that I am for all that she took from me.' My governess now began to come into the whole matter, and he opened
himself freely to her. First she said to him, in answer to what he had
said about me, 'I am glad, sir, you are so just to the person that you
were with; I assure you she is a gentlewoman, and no woman of the town;
and however you prevailed with her so far as you did, I am sure 'tis
not her practice. You ran a great venture indeed, sir; but if that be
any part of your care, I am persuaded you may be perfectly easy, for I
dare assure you no man has touched her, before you, since her husband,
and he has been dead now almost eight years.' It appeared that this was his grievance, and that he was in a very
great fright about it; however, when my governess said this to him, he
appeared very well pleased, and said, 'Well, madam, to be plain with
you, if I was satisfied of that, I should not so much value what I
lost; for, as to that, the temptation was great, and perhaps she was
poor and wanted it.' 'If she had not been poor, sir ----,' says my
governess, 'I assure you she would never have yielded to you; and as
her poverty first prevailed with her to let you do as you did, so the
same poverty prevailed with her to pay herself at last, when she saw
you were in such a condition, that if she had not done it, perhaps the
next coachman might have done it.' 'Well,' says he, 'much good may it do her. I say again, all the
gentlemen that do so ought to be used in the same manner, and then they
would be cautious of themselves. I have no more concern about it, but
on the score which you hinted at before, madam.' Here he entered into
some freedoms with her on the subject of what passed between us, which
are not so proper for a woman to write, and the great terror that was
upon his mind with relation to his wife, for fear he should have
received any injury from me, and should communicate if farther; and
asked her at last if she could not procure him an opportunity to speak
with me. My governess gave him further assurances of my being a woman
clear from any such thing, and that he was as entirely safe in that
respect as he was with his own lady; but as for seeing me, she said it
might be of dangerous consequence; but, however, that she would talk
with me, and let him know my answer, using at the same time some
arguments to persuade him not to desire it, and that it could be of no
service to him, seeing she hoped he had no desire to renew a
correspondence with me, and that on my account it was a kind of putting
my life in his hands.