ce was a duel, and a wound so
severe that he never--his surgeon said--could outlive it. Thinking his
death certain, and touched with remorse, he sent for a priest of the
very Church of St. Gudule where I met you; and on the same day, after
his making submission to our Church, was married to your mother a few
weeks before you were born. My Lord Viscount Castlewood, Marquis of
Esmond, by King James's patent, which I myself took to your father, your
lordship was christened at St. Gudule by the same cure who married your
parents, and by the name of Henry Thomas, son of E. Thomas, officier
Anglois, and Gertrude Maes. You see you belong to us from your birth,
and why I did not christen you when you became my dear little pupil at
Castlewood.

"Your father's wound took a favorable turn--perhaps his conscience was
eased by the right he had done--and to the surprise of the doctors
he recovered. But as his health came back, his wicked nature, too,
returned. He was tired of the poor girl, whom he had ruined; and
receiving some remittance from his uncle, my lord the old viscount, then
in England, he pretended business, promised return, and never saw your
poor mother more.

"He owned to me, in confession first, but afterwards in talk before your
aunt, his wife, else I never could have disclosed what I now tell you,
that on coming to London he writ a pretended confession to poor Gertrude
Maes--Gertrude Esmond--of his having been married in England previously,
before uniting himself with her; said that his name was not Thomas;
that he was about to quit Europe for the Virginian plantations, where,
indeed, your family had a grant of land from King Charles the First;
sent her a supply of money, the half of the last hundred guineas he had,
entreated her pardon, and bade her farewell.

"Poor Gertrude never thought that the news in this letter might be
untrue as the rest of your father's conduct to her. But though a young
man of her own degree, who knew her history, and whom she liked before
she saw the English gentleman who was the cause of all her misery,
offered to marry her, and to adopt you as his own child, and give you
his name, she refused him. This refusal only angered her father, who had
taken her home; she never held up her head there, being the subject
of constant unkindness after her fall; and some devout ladies of her
acquaintance offering to pay a little pension for her, she went into a
convent, and you were put out to nurs