The String of Pearls (1850), p. 275

Arabella slightly bowed; and Johanna fixing her eyes, in which tears were glistening, upon him, said—
"You have come to tell me that I may abandon all hope?"
"No—no; Heaven forbid!"
A bright flush came over the face of the young girl, and clasping her hands, she said—
"Oh, sir, do not play with feelings that perhaps you scarcely guess at. Do not tamper with a heart so near breaking as mine. It is cruel—cruel!"
"Do I deserve such a charge?" said the colonel, "even by implication?"
"No—no," said Arabella. "Recollect yourself, Johanna. You are unjust to one who has shown himself to be your friend, and a friend to him whom you hope to see again.''
Johanna held out her little child-like hand to the colonel, and looking appealingly in his face, she said—
"Can you forgive me? It was not I who spoke, but it was the agony of my
heart that fashioned itself at the moment into words my better judgment and my better feelings will not own. Can you forgive me?"
"Can I, Miss Oakley! Oh, do not ask me. God grant that I could make
you happy."
"I thank you, sir, deeply and truly thank you; and—and—now— now—"
"Now, you would say, tell me my news."
"Yes. Oh, yes."
"Then let us walk upon this broad path, by the river, while, in the first
instance, I tell you that it was only from a deep sense of duty, and a feeling that I ought not, upon any consideration, to keep anything from you, that I came here to-day to give you some more information, and yet fresh information."
"You are very—very good to me, sir."
"No—no, do not say that, Miss Oakley. I am a friend. I am only very selfish; but, in brief, the lad who was in the barber's service at the time we think Mark Ingestrie called at the shop with the string of pearls in his possession, has told us all he knows upon the subject, freely."
"Yes—yes; and—and—"
"He knows very little."
"But that little?"
"Just amounts to this:—That such a person did come to the shop, and that he is quite clear that he never left it."
"Quite clear that he never left it!" repeated Johanna—"that he never left it."
"Quite clear that—that."
She burst into tears, and clung to Arabella Wilmot for support. The colonel looked inexpressibly distressed, but he did not speak. He felt that any commonplace topics of consolation would have been an insult; and he had seen enough of human feelings to know that such bursts of passionate grief cannot be stemmed, but must have their course, and that such tears will flow like irresistible torrents into the ocean of eternity. Arabella was greatly distressed. She had not expected that Johanna would have given way in such a manner, and she looked at Colonel Jeffery as though she would have said—" Is it possible that you can say nothing to calm this grief?" He shook his head, but made no reply in words. In a few moments, however, Johanna was wonderfully recovered. She was able to speak more composedly than she had done since the commencement of the interview.
"Tell me all, now," she said. "I can bear to hear it all."
"You know all, Miss Oakley. The poor boy, in whose fate I have felt
sufficiently interested to take him into my care, says that such a man as Thornhill did come to his master's shop. That he (the boy) was sent out upon some trivial errand, merely to get him out of the way, and that, pending his return, this visitor disappeared. He deposes to the fact of the dog watching the door."
"The dog?"
"Yes. Thornhill, it seems, had a faithful dog with him."