I know not what stuff against me.  I am too well acquainted with the world (of which poor Mrs. Murray’s affair is a fatal instance), not to know that the most groundless accusation is always of ill consequence to a woman; besides the cruel misfortune it may bring upon me in my own family.  If you have any compassion either for me or my innocent children, I am sure you will try to prevent it.  The thing is too serious to be delayed.  I think (to say nothing either of blood or affection), that humanity and Christianity are interested in my preservation.  I am sure I can answer for my hearty gratitude and everlasting acknowledgment of a service much more important than that of saving my life.”

In Lady Mary’s correspondence there is no further reference to this sorry business, and so it cannot be said how it ended.  Nor can it be decided whether Remond really believed he had been swindled or whether he was just a blackmailer.

The intimacy between Lady Mary and Pope is especially interesting because it culminated in one of the most famous quarrels in the literary annals of this country, and second only to that between Pope and Addison.

When Lady Mary went abroad in 1716 Pope, who always wanted to make the best of both worlds, thought, it has been related by his biographers, of what dramatic situation describing the separation of lovers would best suit him to express his feelings, and he found exactly what he wanted on the supposed authentic letters of Eloisa to Abelard.  Pope sent Lady Mary a volume of his poems, saying:  “Among the rest you have all I am worth, that is, my works.  There are few things in them but what you have already seen, except the ‘Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard,’ in which you will find one passage that I cannot tell whether to wish you should understand or not.”

Pope corresponded with Lady Mary during the two years of her stay abroad.  The first letter from Pope begins: 

“So natural as I find it is to me to neglect every body else in your company, I am sensible I ought to do anything that might please you, and I fancied upon recollection, our writing the letter you proposed was of that nature.  I therefore sate down to my part of it last night, when I should have gone out of town.  Whether or no you will order me, in recompense, to see you again, I leave to you, for indeed I find I begin to behave myself worse to you than to any other woman, as I value you more, and yet if I thought I should not see you again, I would say some things here, which I could not to your person.  For I would not have you die deceived in me, that is, go to Constantinople without knowing that I am to some degree of extravagance, as well as with the utmost reason, madam, your, etc.”

Some passages from Pope’s subsequent letters must be given to indicate the lines on which this correspondence was conducted.