"Well, my lady, I'm truly sorry for all this; but perhaps it shows that poor Jane's story may have been true after all." "Indeed it does; but still I have never been able to understand Jane's conduct when I found the bracelet in her hands. If she had only produced the other bracelet, and explained in a simple way how she came by them, or if the other bracelet had been found, that might have made a difference; but it has never been seen or heard of from that day to this." "I can now explain all to your ladyship's full satisfaction," said Bradly. "Indeed, Thomas, I shall be only too thankful, for I now know both Georgina and John Hollands to have been utterly untruthful, and I could almost as soon have doubted my own senses as Jane's truthfulness and honesty. But appearances did certainly seem very much against her." "Your ladyship says nothing but the simple truth, but I can explain it all now from John Hollands' own confession." "Indeed!" "Yes, my lady. On the 23rd of last December, Hollands, who was on his way abroad, stopped at our station--Crossbourne station--on the road, and left a bag and a letter for Jane in the hands of a railway porter. In that bag was the missing bracelet, the fellow to the one your ladyship saw in Jane's hands; and a letter was in the bag too, explaining how John had joined Georgina in a plot to ruin Jane, because she had reproved them for some of their evil doings." "Dear me!" cried her ladyship, shocked and surprised; "is it possible? But why did you not acquaint me with this at once?" "Well, my lady, here is the strangest part of my story. The porter, instead of bringing the bag on to us at once, left it outside a public- house, while he went in to get a drink, and when he came out again the bag was gone; and, though every inquiry and search was made after it, it only turned up a few days ago." "But the letter?" asked Lady Morville; "did the porter lose that too?" "No; he brought it to us in a day or two, for he were afraid to bring it at first, because he'd lost our bag." "Still, Thomas, if you or Jane had brought that letter, it would, no doubt, have made all plain, and quite cleared her character." "Ah! But, my lady, the letter the porter brought said very little. I have it here. It only says, `Dear Jane, I am sorry now for all as I've done at you. Pray forgive me. You will find a letter all about it in the bag, and I've put your little marked Bible and the other br---t [that means bracelet, of course] with it into the bag. So no more at present from yours--JH.'" "And why didn't you bring me this letter, Thomas? I should have been quite satisfied with it." "Ah! My lady, it would have looked a lame sort of tale if I'd brought this letter and said as the bag and bracelet had been lost. It would have looked very much like a roundabout make-up sort of story, letter and all."