The letter dropped from my hand.  I looked at Betteredge.  “In the name of Heaven,” I said, “what does it mean?”

He seemed to shrink from answering the question.

“You and Limping Lucy were alone together this morning, sir,” he said.  “Did she say nothing about Rosanna Spearman?”

“She never even mentioned Rosanna Spearman’s name.”

“Please to go back to the letter, Mr. Franklin.  I tell you plainly, I can’t find it in my heart to distress you, after what you have had to bear already.  Let her speak for herself, sir.  And get on with your grog.  For your own sake, get on with your grog.”

I resumed the reading of the letter.

“It would be very disgraceful to me to tell you this, if I was a living woman when you read it.  I shall be dead and gone, sir, when you find my letter.  It is that which makes me bold.  Not even my grave will be left to tell of me.  I may own the truth—­with the quicksand waiting to hide me when the words are written.

“Besides, you will find your nightgown in my hiding-place, with the smear of the paint on it; and you will want to know how it came to be hidden by me? and why I said nothing to you about it in my life-time?  I have only one reason to give.  I did these strange things, because I loved you.

“I won’t trouble you with much about myself, or my life, before you came to my lady’s house.  Lady Verinder took me out of a reformatory.  I had gone to the reformatory from the prison.  I was put in the prison, because I was a thief.  I was a thief, because my mother went on the streets when I was quite a little girl.  My mother went on the streets, because the gentleman who was my father deserted her.  There is no need to tell such a common story as this, at any length.  It is told quite often enough in the newspapers.

“Lady Verinder was very kind to me, and Mr. Betteredge was very kind to me.  Those two, and the matron at the reformatory, are the only good people I have ever met with in all my life.  I might have got on in my place—­not happily—­but I might have got on, if you had not come visiting.  I don’t blame you, sir.  It’s my fault—­all my fault.

“Do you remember when you came out on us from among the sand hills, that morning, looking for Mr. Betteredge?  You were like a prince in a fairy-story.  You were like a lover in a dream.  You were the most adorable human creature I had ever seen.  Something that felt like the happy life I had never led yet, leapt up in me at the instant I set eyes on you.  Don’t laugh at this if you can help it.  Oh, if I could only make you feel how serious it is to me!