It was easily opened. He drew forth the contents with a detestable eagerness, and read as follows: _My dearest girl,--_ _This is the first moment that I have felt able to write to you, so great have been my sufferings, so keen my humiliation over this mercenary marriage of yours. I feel as if I had been living in a nightmare ever since that fatal day when I went to town to meet the inhuman monster who almost blighted my young life, and has now fastened his claws into you instead._ _Oh, Virginia! Sooner--far sooner--would I have gone to the workhouse than be obliged to think of you in Gaunt's power! But you knew that! Again and again did I assure you, did I not, how far I was from demanding this sacrifice at your hands? How is he using you? That is the question that forces itself upon me every hour--that keeps me awake at night with the horrors! Your letter to Pansy was more or less reassuring, I must own. Perhaps, when he finds how useful and domestic you are, he may be kinder than my fears suggest?_ _Meantime, I miss you every moment. You will know how I have always detested the petty meannesses of life, the half-pounds of cooking butter, the scraps for the stock-pot, the way the coal disappears, the price of fish--all the endless, nauseating haggling over pence! To this you have left me, after all that I have suffered. After the shattering blows of the death of my first-born, my widowhood, our ruin--you have taken the hand of a man who can give you life's good things, and you have left me to the slavery which you found so unbearable. But I must not reproach you, for you may be already suffering for your mistake. Do write me a few lines, and tell me frankly how he is treating you?_ _If I am wrong, if he is behaving kindly to you, it will be such a relief to know it. He may, of course, actually have fallen in love with your looks. You are, as all declare, absurdly like me. If this should be so, I know, my darling daughter, that you will use your opportunity to help me. You must see that the allowance secured to me is wretchedly inadequate. £300 a year is impossible. It will mean an existence of continual debt. £400--that is, a hundred pounds a quarter--might be conceivable. It is the very lowest upon which one should be called upon to live. If Gaunt is inclined to be indulgent--if you have managed to get on his blind side--do strike while the iron is hot, and have this matter arranged for me, won't you?_ _It is not as if I asked for riches. Think of what I have been used to? Think of me here in this odious little town, non-existent as far as the county is concerned--Me, Mrs. Bernard Mynors--a prouder name than that of many a peer. Think of this in your luxury, and spare a little pity for your wretched mother._ Virginia Mynors.