She seemed a little taken aback by this speech; but was wonderfully firm. She passed her white, jeweled hand over her eyes, seemed calculating, and then whispered, with a confiding look of innocent helplessness, admirably assumed:
"About as many as amount to twelve hundred pounds."
"And what means have you for meeting them?"
At this question, so plainly put, her face flushed. She half-rose from her chair, and exclaimed, in the true tone of aristocratic _hauteur_, "Really, sir, I do not know what right you have to ask me that question."
I laughed a little, though not very loud. It was rude, I own; but who could have helped it? I replied, speaking low, but slowly and distinctly, "You forget. I did not send for you: you came to me. You have forged bills to the amount of twelve hundred pounds. Yours is not the case of a ruined merchant, or an ignorant over-tempted clerk. In your case a jury" (she shuddered at that word) "would find no extenuating circumstances; and if you should ever fall into the hands of justice, you will be convicted, degraded, clothed in a prison dress, and transported for life. I do not want to speak harshly; but I insist that you find means to take up the bill which Mr. Axminster has so unwittingly indorsed!"
The Honorable Miss Snape's grand manner melted away. She wept. She seized and pressed my hand. She cast up her eyes, full of tears, and went through the part of a repentant victim with great fervor. She would do any thing; any thing in the world to save the poor man. Indeed, she had intended to appropriate part of the two hundred pound bill to that purpose.
She forgot her first statement, that she wanted the money to go out of town. Without interrupting, I let her go on and degrade herself by a simulated passion of repentance, regret, and thankfulness to me, under which she hid her fear and her mortification at being detected. I at length put an end to a scene of admirable acting, by recommending her to go abroad immediately, to place herself out of reach of any sudden discovery; and then lay her case fully before her friends, who would, no doubt, feel bound to come forward with the full amount of the forged bills. "But," she exclaimed, with an entreating air, "I have no money; I can not go without money!" To that observation I did not respond; although I am sure she expected that I should, check-book in hand, offer her a loan.
