m
strangers, but there were many wanting which you can best
supply. I know that this gentleman had a daughter, or daughters,
by an earlier marriage--and I can find no clew to the date of my
sister's marriage--which might in itself determine the possible
age of her own daughter. That this child survived I have painful
cause to remember. I had sustained shipwreck, and was in
abeyance for clothes and money both, when it occurred to me to
call on my brother-in-law, present to him my credentials, and
remain a few days at his house as his guest, in the enjoyment of
my sister's society, until my needs could be supplied from
certain resources at a distance. The reception I met with from
his elder daughter, and the information she haughtily gave me,
determined my course. I sought no more the inhospitable roof of
Mr. Monfort, to find shelter beneath which I had forfeited all
claim by the death of my sister, then first suddenly revealed to
me. Her child, I was told, had been recently injured by burning
and could not be seen, even by so near a relative, and the
manner of the young lady, whom I now identify as Evelyn Monfort,
was such as to lead me at the time to believe this a mere excuse
or evasion, which I did not seek to oppose.

"It is just possible that there may be a third sister, yet I
think I have heard you say you had but one, and this
reminiscence is anguish to my mind. Even more, the careless and
unwarrantable allusions of Mr. Gregory to certain scars,
evidently from burns that he had the insolence to observe on
your neck and arms, and remark upon as mere foils to their
beauty, in my first acquaintance with you and before I had a
right to silence him, recurred to me as a partial confirmation
of my fears. Without explaining to him my motives, I questioned
him on this subject again soon after he handed me your note, a
proceeding that I should have shrunk from as gross and unworthy
of a gentleman under any other circumstances. I did not stop to
think what impression my inquiries would leave upon his mind,
ever prone to levity and suspicion; but he must have seen that I
was deeply moved, and that no impertinent curiosity could sway
me to such a course with regard to the woman I loved and had
openly declared my plighted wife. You will understand all this
and make allowance f