nmity between father and son by
telling him anything about it. _He_ thinks that his father is dead,
and I have never undeceived him. He has heard of you only as one who was
a friend of his mother, and who, for her sake, may become the friend of
her son. It must be for you to decide whether to leave him in this
ignorance or to tell him the truth.

"Perhaps you will ask why I have concealed your son's existence from you
up to this time. I will tell you; but in order to do so clearly, I must
refer to those last few weeks spent with you in Paris before our
separation.

"Remember the ball at the British Embassy, to which you persuaded me to
go, and where I met, unexpectedly the Count de Volaski, my secretly
married husband, supposed to be dead; remember my illness that followed!
and how earnestly I tried to avoid him, an effort that was totally
useless, because he, considering that he possessed the only rightful
claim to my society, constantly sought me, and you, ignorant of all his
antecedents, constantly helped him to see me.

"My position was degrading, agonizing, intolerable. I found myself,
though guiltless of any intentional wrong-doing, in the horrible dilemma
of a wife with two living husbands.

"Yes, by the laws of love and nature, justice and the church, I was the
wife of Waldemar de Volaski; by the laws of France and England, I was the
wife of the Duke of Hereward.

"The discovery shocked, confused, and, perhaps, unsettled my reason. At
first I knew not what to do. I prayed for death. I contemplated suicide.
At length, I thought I saw a way out of my dreadful dilemma. It was to
escape and to live apart from both forever.

"So also thought the Count de Volaski. I consulted with him. I dared not
confess to you the secret that my parents had compelled me to conceal so
long. Volaski would have told you, but I would not consent that he should
do so, until I should be safe out of the house; for I could not have
borne, after such confession, to have met you again; and again, under any
circumstances, I preferred that I myself should be your informant. I
determined to leave yon, and to live apart from both, as the only life of
peace and honor possible for me, and to write you a letter confessing the
whole truth, as an explanation of my course of conduct. I thought that
you would understand and pity me, and leave me to my fate.

"I did _not_ think that you would disbelieve my statement, publish my
flight, and blast