"What am I to do?" he exclaimed. "I can't stay on here--I--I--just
can't. You ha' got me in your power. You'll rue it some day. Er I say
what you want me to say, I'll go to prison instead of Will. It ain't
in reason to expect a feller to say a thing like that."
"Isaac," continued Hester, "we don't care nothing about punishing you.
This is what you've got to do,--you've got to take Will out of prison,
and let him marry his own true love. And you have got to do it in this
way. I'm going now to fetch Miss Mary Vallence, the young lady whose
purse you stole, and she'll take down your full confession in
writing,--all about how you planned to ruin Will, all your reasons,
and what you did with the rest of the money. She'll put it down on
paper--the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; and then
you ha' got to sign your name to it, and Mother Bunch and me we'll
witness it, and then after that, Isaac, we'll set you free, and one
of us will go with you to the end of Paradise Row, and you shall have
an hour--jest one hour--to get away in, before Miss Vallence lodges
that paper with the police.
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