“Now for another matter about which I meant to write to you yesterday, but I was prevented by our expedition to Lowell. The evenings I of course devote to Clara. I have not been so engrossed by my own very important concerns as to neglect yours. I stopped a day in Philadelphia, illy as I could afford the time, to make such investigations as I could, without exciting invidious suspicion, into the character of the person whom I found domesticated at Ridgeley on my return from my summer tour. The information I picked up in that cautious city was so meagre and tantalizing as to provoke me into the belief that he had selected his references with an eye to the slenderness of their knowledge of his personal history. Accident, however, has since placed within my reach a means of learning all that I wish to know. Without wearying you with explanations, which, indeed, I have no time to write--being engaged to drive out with Clara in an hour from this time--I will transcribe a portion of a letter received by me, two days since, from a gentleman of unexceptional standing, and upon whose word you may safely depend. “He says: 'In reply to your queries as to my acquaintanceship with one Frederic Chilton, now a practising lawyer in the city of Philadelphia, I would, if conscience permitted, repay your frankness by evasion of a disagreeable truth. But in the circumstances which induced your appeal, I have no option. Hesitation or concealment would be unkind and dishonorable. I knew the man you speak of well--I may say intimately, while we were fellow-students in the----law school, in 18--. He was then--what I have but too much reason for believing him at this day--a plausible, unprincipled man of pleasure. Our intercourse, which commenced at the card-table, terminated with a severe horsewhipping I administered to him in punishment of an offence offered a married lady--a relative of my own. Taking advantage of the protracted absence of her husband, who was a naval officer, he offered her many attentions, received by herself as tokens of innocent and friendly regard, until he forgot himself so far as to make her open and insulting proposals, even urging her to consent to an elopement, and threatening, in the event of her refusal, to ruin her by infamous calumnies. Her father was infirm; her husband in a foreign land. His base persecution would have met with no chastisement, had not I espoused the terrified woman's cause. These are the bare facts of the case. He merited a flogging--as you, a chivalric Virginian, will admit. I--a Northern man, with cooler blood, but I hope, as true a sense of honor and right as your own--inflicted this, as I am prepared to testify before any number of witnesses.'” [Mabel was reading very fast, her eyes hurrying from side to side of the page, her face blanching, and her hands more numb with every word.]