for such I knew was even then the baby boy’s title!  With these fond hopes I rapidly recovered.  “Perfect love casteth out fear.”  Mother-love had cast out from my soul all fear of you.  I thought that you would feel so rejoiced at the news of the birth of your son, your heir, and so fine a boy, that even for his sake you would forgive his mother, supposing that you should still think you had anything to forgive.

“In the midst of my vain dreaming a thunderbolt fell upon me!

“My boy was six weeks old.  I had not yet left the house to carry out any of my happy resolutions, when my good Madelena entered my room and brought two large parcels of English papers, such as were sent me monthly by my London correspondent.  She told me that the first parcel had arrived during my confinement to my bed, and that she had laid it away and forgotten all about it until this day, when the arrival of the second parcel had reminded her of it, and now she had brought them both, and hoped I would excuse her negligence in not having remembered to bring the first parcel sooner.  I readily and even hastily excused her, for I was anxious to get rid of my good hostess and read my files of papers.

“As any one else would have done under the like circumstances, I opened the last parcel first, and selected the latest paper to begin with.  It was the London Times of April 7th.  As I opened it, a short, marked paragraph caught my eyes.

“Judge of my consternation when I read the notice of your marriage with the Lady Augusta McDugald!

“The letters ran together on my vision, the room whirled around with me, all grew dark, and I lost consciousness.  When I recovered my senses I found myself in bed, with Madelena and several of her kind neighbors in attendance upon me.  Many days passed before I was able to look again at the file of English newspapers.

“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!