“But there remains another point connected with the affair about which it is due to myself that I should say something, although it is one the particulars of which you doubtless hoped could by no possibility reach me. “When you first induced me to promise to become your wife you begged of me to keep our engagement a secret from everyone till you should give me leave to speak of it. It was a request to which I weakly acceded, although I was made very unhappy thereby. Not that I had the faintest notion of the base advantage which you proposed to take of my silence. But I am ignorant no longer. You were afraid that if the fact of our engagement were made public it might reach the ears of one to whom you were already bound by a solemn promise of marriage. It was not that you cared in the least about your promise; your fear was lest certain compromising letters written by you from time to time might be brought up in judgment against you, and not till an opportunity should offer itself for you to regain possession of them were you willing that your engagement to me should become known. “The wished-for opportunity came at last, and you, who doubtless would be highly indignant if anyone were to speak of you as other than a gentleman and a man of honour—you condescended to break open and rifle the workbox of her into whose ear, only a few hours before, you had been whispering false vows of love and constancy! But you had your reward; you got back your letters; you had no longer anything to fear, or so you flattered yourself. You hurried back to me and told me smilingly that the need for keeping our engagement a secret no longer existed. I have taken the trouble of writing to you at so much length in order to prove to you that the full measure of your baseness is known to me. How utterly mean and despicable you have become in my eyes, in what utter loathing and contempt I hold you, I leave you to imagine for yourself—and you could scarcely imagine anything that exceeds the reality. “ETHEL THURSBY.”