"Dear Mr. Suds, I write to you for the first and last time. Perhaps I should not have written to you at all. If I have erred from maiden modesty in so doing, I hope you will excuse me. I really could not let so great a friend pass from me without a word. I heard of your escape by chance, and you may imagine my extreme delight and thankfulness at the joyful news, though I never could learn in what manner you effected it. Enough for me that you are safe in your own free country, far from the broils of civil discord and intestine misery. "Alas! my friend, if I may be allowed to call you by that name, I have suffered much since we parted; so much, indeed, that were you to see me now, you would not know me again for the gay capricious Pauline of former times, whose eyes and complexion you were once wont to praise. Forgive me, my friend, forgive me, Mr. Suds, if I have already said too much, and bear with me still, while I yet disburden my heart of more. The words tremble on my pen, my hand refuses to write what my heart dictates, for fear of incurring your displeasure and contempt, rather than brook which I would that my hand would paralyse, that I might never touch pen more; that my lips were sealed that I might never more express the feelings that rise and crave for utterance, ay that my heart itself would cease to beat. I can no longer restrain my pen. My eyes fill with tears as I write. Pardon my temerity. I feel I must speak or die. "Dear Mr. Suds, did you ever imagine that from the very first moment that you introduced yourself at my father's shop that my heart was no longer my own? Did you know that the attentions of the odious Jacques Millefleurs which my vanity only induced me to encourage, from that time became loathsome to me, and my heart told me too truly the reason why? "Oh! my dearest friend, if you knew how hard it has been to me to persist in dissimulation for so long, to hide from my father and from Millefleurs that which was passing in my bosom! "Oh! if you knew the shock I received when I witnessed your arrest and the deadly hatred that I bore towards Jacques Millefleurs for being the cause, oh, then my love! then, I say, you would pardon me all, ay, even the hideous crime I perpetrated for your sake. Know then, my loved one, that it was I--I,--your Pauline, who accused Jacques to the government for conspiring against it, even as he had falsely accused you, and caused him to be arrested and condemned! Know you that whilst your bark was peacefully crossing the channel that Jacques Millefleurs was taking your place at the scaffold? You are avenged, and through me, though I know your noble nature must recoil at such retaliation. Enough, he is judged; peace be to his soul. "But, alas, evil though he may have been, will his crimes help to wash out one iota of the stain of my guilt? Shall I ever feel the stings of remorse less keenly because I committed the rash and mean act in the very torrent of passion?