He was the person whom (as then holding an office in the prison)
Barratt had attempted to employ as agent in conveying any messages that
he found it safe to send--obscurely hinting the terms on which he would
desist from prosecution. Ratcliffe had at first undertaken the
negotiation from mere levity of character. But when the story and the
public interest spread, and after himself becoming deeply struck by the
prisoner's affliction, beauty, and reputed innocence, he had pursued it
only as a means of entrapping Barratt into such written communications
and such private confessions of the truth as might have served Agnes
effectually. He wanted the art, however, to disguise his purposes:
Barratt came to suspect him violently, and feared his evidence so far,
even for those imperfect and merely oral overtures which he had really
sent through Ratcliffe--that on the very day of the trial, he, as was
believed, though by another nominally, contrived that Ratcliffe should
be arrested for debt; and, after harassing him with intricate forms of
business, had finally caused him to be conveyed to prison. Ratcliffe
was thus involved in his own troubles at the time; and afterwards
supposed that, without written documents to support his evidence, he
could not be of much service to the re-establisment of my wife's
reputation.
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