Page:The private memoirs and confessions of a justified sinner (IA privatememoirsco00hoggrich).pdf/101

 Mrs. Logan hesitated, for her mind ran on something else. On which the other subjoined: "No, you will not forgive me, I see. But you will pray to God to forgive me? I know you will do that."

Mrs. Logan heard not this jeer, but looking at the prisoner with an absent and stupid stare, she said, "Did you know my late master?"

"Ay, that I did, and never for any good," said she. "I knew the old and the young spark both, and was by when the latter was slain."

This careless sentence affected Mrs. Logan in a most peculiar manner. A shower of tears burst from her eyes ere it was done, and when it was, she appeared like one bereaved of her mind. She first turned one way and then another, as if looking for something she had dropped. She seemed to think she had lost her eyes, instead of her tears, and at length, as by instinct, she tottered close up to the prisoner's face, and looking wistfully and joyfully in it, said, with breathless earnestness, "Pray, mistress, what is your name?"

"My name is Arabella Calvert," said the other: "Miss, mistress, or widow, as you chuse, for I have been all the three, and that not once nor twice only