However, it went off again, and he recovered, though but slowly, and
when he came to be a little better, he told me I had given him a mortal
wound with my tongue, and he had only one thing to ask before he
desired an explanation. I interrupted him, and told him I was sorry I
had gone so far, since I saw what disorder it put him into, but I
desired him not to talk to me of explanations, for that would but make
things worse.
This heightened his impatience, and, indeed, perplexed him beyond all
bearing; for now he began to suspect that there was some mystery yet
unfolded, but could not make the least guess at the real particulars of
it; all that ran in his brain was, that I had another husband alive,
which I could not say in fact might not be true, but I assured him,
however, there was not the least of that in it; and indeed, as to my
other husband, he was effectually dead in law to me, and had told me I
should look on him as such, so I had not the least uneasiness on that
score.
But now I found the thing too far gone to conceal it much longer, and
my husband himself gave me an opportunity to ease myself of the secret,
much to my satisfaction. He had laboured with me three or four weeks,
but to no purpose, only to tell him whether I had spoken these words
only as the effect of my passion, to put him in a passion, or whether
there was anything of truth in the bottom of them. But I continued
inflexible, and would explain nothing, unless he would first consent to
my going to England, which he would never do, he said, while he lived;
on the other hand, I said it was in my power to make him willing when I
pleased--nay, to make him entreat me to go; and this increased his
curiosity, and made him importunate to the highest degree, but it was
all to no purpose.
At length he tells all this story to his mother, and sets her upon me
to get the main secret out of me, and she used her utmost skill with me
indeed; but I put her to a full stop at once by telling her that the
reason and mystery of the whole matter lay in herself, and that it was
my respect to her that had made me conceal it; and that, in short, I
could go no farther, and therefore conjured her not to insist upon it.