Chapter XCIII: Letter I

DEAR M. LE MARQUIS,--How can I thank you sufficiently for obtaining
and remitting to me those certificates? You are too aware of the
unhappy episode in my life not to know how inestimable is the
service you render me. I am saved all further molestation from the
man who had indeed no right over my freedom, but whose persecution
might compel me to the scandal and disgrace of an appeal to the law
for protection, and the avowal of the illegal marriage into which I
was duped. I would rather be torn limb from limb by wild horses,
like the Queen in the history books, than dishonour myself and the
ancestry which I may at least claim on the mother’s side, by
proclaiming that I had lived with that low Englishman as his wife,
when I was only--O heavens, I cannot conclude the sentence!

“No, Mons. le Marquis, I am in no want of the pecuniary aid you so
generously wish to press on me. Though I know not where to address
my poor dear uncle,--though I doubt, even if I did, whether I could
venture to confide to him the secret known only to yourself as to
the name I now bear--and if he hear of me at all he must believe me
dead,--yet I have enough left of the money he last remitted to me
for present support; and when that fails, I think, what with my
knowledge of English and such other slender accomplishments as I
possess, I could maintain myself as a teacher or governess in some
German family. At all events, I will write to you again soon, and I
entreat you to let me know all you can learn about my uncle. I feel
so grateful to you for your just disbelief of the horrible calumny
which must be so intolerably galling to a man so proud, and,
whatever his errors, so incapable of a baseness.

“Direct to me Poste restante, Augsburg.

“Yours with all consideration,