"You had married again! you had married just one week before the birth of my son! But under what circumstances had you married? Did you suppose me to be dead, and that my death had set you free? Or--oh, horror! had you dragged my name before a public tribunal, and by lying _facts_--for facts do often lie--had you branded me with infidelity, and repudiated me by divorce? "Such were the questions that tormented me, until I was able to examine the file of English newspapers, and find out from them; for, as before, I would not have taken any one into my confidence by getting another to read the papers for me, even if I could have found any one in that rural Italian neighborhood capable of reading English. "At length, one morning, I sent for the papers, and began to look them over, and I found--merciful Heaven! what I feared to find--the full report of our divorce trial! found myself held up to public scorn and execration, the reproach of my own sex--the contempt of yours! Found myself, in short, convicted and divorced from you, upon the foulest charge that can be brought upon a woman! Guiltless as I was! wronged as I had been! wishing only to live a pure and blameless life, as I did! "Oh! the intolerable anguish of the days that followed! But for my baby boy, I think I should have died, or maddened! "In my worst paroxysms, good Madelena would come and take up my baby and lay him on my bosom, and whisper, that no doubt, though his handsome young father had gone to Heaven, it was all for the best; and we too, if we were good, would one day meet him there, or words to that effect. "Surely angels are with children, and their presence makes itself felt in the comfort children bring to wounded hearts. "One day, in a state bordering on idiocy, I think, I examined and compared dates, in the sickening hope that my darling boy might have been born before the decree of divorce had been pronounced, and thus be the heir of his father's dukedom, notwithstanding all that followed. "But, ah! that faint hope also was destined to die! The dates, compared, stood thus: "The decree of divorce was pronounced February 13th, 18--. "The marriage between yourself and Lady Augusta McDugald was solemnized April 1st, 18--. "My boy was born April 15th, 18--. "Yes, you divorced the guiltless mother two months, and married another woman two weeks, before the birth of your innocent boy. "You cruelly and unjustly disowned, disinherited, and even delegalized, and degraded your son before he was born! So that your son was not born in wedlock, could not bear your name, or inherit your title! And this misfortune came upon him by no fault of his, or of his most unhappy mother's but by the jealousy, vengeance, and fatal rashness of his father! And now there was no help, either in law or equity, for the dishonored boy. "This, Duke of Hereward, is the ruin you have wrought in his life, in mine, and in yours.