“Mr. Maitland never brought me the letter to which you allude. I have never seen any of your companions in misfortune, except Colonel Eversham, who told me how he followed your remains to the grave, and I have yet to learn by what means you effected your escape from Verdun. For two years I mourned you in sincerity and truth. During all that time I regulated my conduct by what I supposed would have been your wishes, if you had been able to express them to me before your supposed death. “Some months after the expiration of my two years’ mourning, I accepted the hand of Mr. Hamilton. You must feel, that, although this second marriage is null and void, and that in the eye of the law I am your wife, an eternal barrier is placed between yourself and me. “Upon the reception of your first letter, Mr. Hamilton left me, and I have not seen him since. Upon the confirmation of this first letter (in the authenticity of which we scarcely believed), I removed with—the—two children to my father’s.” [She had at first written “_your_ two children;” but she felt as if by that word she were tacitly yielding them up to him, and she substituted _our_. This she feared might imply that their reunion was not impossible, and she wrote _the_.] “Indeed, indeed, my conscience acquits me of having wilfully done any thing wrong, though I am aware I have cast a blight over the fate of all those whose happiness I would gladly die to secure. Would I could die! But it is our duty to suffer and submit. Misfortune has, I hope, taught you likewise the duty of resignation. Pray, as I do, for strength to fulfil our pilgrimage here on earth in unrepining patience and humility, so that we may hereafter be deemed worthy of our Maker’s promised blessings to those who do his will in this world. Our misfortunes have not originated in guilt: in that reflection let us find a supporting hope; and rest assured that, had I known you to be living, no length of absence, no human power, no imaginable circumstances, should have shaken my adherence to my maiden vow of constancy: you should have found me as you left me— “Your faithful wife, “ELLEN CRESFORD.”