ce. But I cannot refrain from addressing you, and must
leave it to you to reply or not, as you may think fit.

I will only refer to that episode of my life with which
you are acquainted, for the sake of acknowledging my great
fault and of assuring you that I did not go unpunished. It
would be useless for me now to attempt to explain to you
the circumstances which led me into that difficulty which
ended in so great a blunder; but I will ask you to believe
that my folly was greater than my sin.

But I will come to my point at once. You are, no doubt,
aware that I married a daughter of Lord De Courcy, and
that I was separated from my wife a few weeks after our
unfortunate marriage. It is now something over twelve
months since she died at Baden-Baden in her mother's
house. I never saw her since the day we first parted. I
have not a word to say against her. The fault was mine in
marrying a woman whom I did not love and had never loved.
When I married Lady Alexandrina I loved, not her, but your
daughter.

I believe I may venture to say to you that your daughter
once loved me. From the day on which I last wrote to you
that terrible letter which told you of my fate, I have
never mentioned the name of Lily Dale to human ears. It
has been too sacred for my mouth,--too sacred for the
intercourse of any friendship with which I have been
blessed. I now use it for the first time to you, in order
that I may ask whether it be possible that her old love
should ever live again. Mine has lived always,--has never
faded for an hour, making me miserable during the years
that have passed since I saw her, but capable of making me
very happy, if I may be allowed to see her again.

You will understand my purpose now as well as though I
were to write pages. I have no scheme formed in my head
for seeing your daughter again. How can I dare to form a
scheme, when I am aware that the chance of success must be
so strong against me? But if you will tell me that there
can be a gleam of hope, I will obey any commands that
you can put upon me in any way that you may point out. I
am free again,--and she is free. I love her with all my
heart, and seem to long for nothing in the world but that
she should become my wife. Whether any of her old love may
still abide with her, you will know. If it do, it may even
yet prompt her t