have found
out his more immediate design. His design is to have you carried to the
Chatelet, that the suspicion may appear just, and then to get the jewels
out of your hands if possible; then, at last, to drop the prosecution on
your consenting to quit the jewels to him; and how you will do to avoid
this is the question which I would have you consider of."

"My misfortune, sir," said I, "is that I have no time to consider, and I
have no person to consider with or advise about it. I find that
innocence may be oppressed by such an impudent fellow as this; he that
does not value perjury has any man's life at his mercy. But, sir," said
I, "is the justice such here that, while I may be in the hands of the
public and under prosecution, he may get hold of my effects and get my
jewels into his hands?"

"I don't know," says he, "what may be done in that case; but if not he,
if the court of justice should get hold of them I do not know but you
may find it as difficult to get them out of their hands again, and, at
least, it may cost you half as much as they are worth; so I think it
would be a much better way to prevent their coming at them at all."

"But what course can I take to do that," says I, "now they have got
notice that I have them? If they get me into their hands they will
oblige me to produce them, or perhaps sentence me to prison till I do."

"Nay," says he, "as this brute says, too, put you to the question--that
is, to the torture, on pretence of making you confess who were the
murderers of your husband."

"Confess!" said I. "How can I confess what I know nothing of?"

"If they come to have you to the rack," said he, "they will make you
confess you did it yourself, whether you did it or no, and then you are
cast."

The very word rack frighted me to death almost, and I had no spirit left
in me. "Did it myself!" said I. "That's impossible!"

"No, madam," says he, "'tis far from impossible. The most innocent
people in the world have been forced to confess themselves guilty of
what they never heard of, much less had any hand in."

"What, then, must I do?" said I. "What would you advise me to?"

"Why," says he, "I would advise you to be gone. You intended to go away
in four or five days, and you may as well go in two days; and if you can
do so, I shall manage it so that he shall not suspect your being gone
for several days after." Then he told me how the rogue would have me
ordered to bring the jewels the next d