The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

However, it went off again, and he recovered, though but slowly, and

when he came to be a little better, he told me I had given him a mortal

wound with my tongue, and he had only one thing to ask before he

desired an explanation. I interrupted him, and told him I was sorry I

had gone so far, since I saw what disorder it put him into, but I

desired him not to talk to me of explanations, for that would but make

things worse.

This heightened his impatience, and, indeed, perplexed him beyond all

bearing; for now he began to suspect that there was some mystery yet

unfolded, but could not make the least guess at the real particulars of

it; all that ran in his brain was, that I had another husband alive,

which I could not say in fact might not be true, but I assured him,

however, there was not the least of that in it; and indeed, as to my

other husband, he was effectually dead in law to me, and had told me I

should look on him as such, so I had not the least uneasiness on that

score.

But now I found the thing too far gone to conceal it much longer, and

my husband himself gave me an opportunity to ease myself of the secret,

much to my satisfaction. He had laboured with me three or four weeks,

but to no purpose, only to tell him whether I had spoken these words

only as the effect of my passion, to put him in a passion, or whether

there was anything of truth in the bottom of them. But I continued

inflexible, and would explain nothing, unless he would first consent to

my going to England, which he would never do, he said, while he lived;

on the other hand, I said it was in my power to make him willing when I

pleased--nay, to make him entreat me to go; and this increased his

curiosity, and made him importunate to the highest degree, but it was

all to no purpose.

At length he tells all this story to his mother, and sets her upon me

to get the main secret out of me, and she used her utmost skill with me

indeed; but I put her to a full stop at once by telling her that the

reason and mystery of the whole matter lay in herself, and that it was

my respect to her that had made me conceal it; and that, in short, I

could go no farther, and therefore conjured her not to insist upon it.