Читать книгу Charles Peace, or The Adventures of a Notorious Burglar онлайн

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These two communications were followed by imploring letters, in which she told him how hard the world was using them, and what miserable struggles they had passed through.

But in this as in all others she spoke in the highest terms of her husband, who she said did his best to maintain a respectable position in the world; this was done for her sake more than his own, “and if,” she said in conclusion, “you only knew him half as well as I do, you would admire and esteem him; nay, more, I believe you would be proud of him.”

“She must have taken leave of her senses,” ejaculated the earl. “The wretched Italian must have bewitched her, the silly, senseless girl. Oh, but all this is hard to bear!”

He remained for some time after this lost in thought.

Presently he opened another epistle.

This announced the birth of a daughter; it was, of course, a fine child, and was, so the writer avowed, “the very image of its mother, and was an Ethalwood,—​this everyone would acknowledge upon the first glance, and she will be named after me,” wrote the ill-fated wife. “Some day I hope you will see the little dear, and when you do I hope you will forgive me for your grand-daughter’s sake. She, at any rate, has not done anything to offend you.”