“He says:  ’In reply to your queries as to my acquaintanceship with one Frederic Chilton, now a practising lawyer in the city of Philadelphia, I would, if conscience permitted, repay your frankness by evasion of a disagreeable truth.  But in the circumstances which induced your appeal, I have no option.  Hesitation or concealment would be unkind and dishonorable.  I knew the man you speak of well—­I may say intimately, while we were fellow-students in the——­ law school, in 18—.  He was then—­what I have but too much reason for believing him at this day—­a plausible, unprincipled man of pleasure.  Our intercourse, which commenced at the card-table, terminated with a severe horsewhipping I administered to him in punishment of an offence offered a married lady—­a relative of my own.  Taking advantage of the protracted absence of her husband, who was a naval officer, he offered her many attentions, received by herself as tokens of innocent and friendly regard, until he forgot himself so far as to make her open and insulting proposals, even urging her to consent to an elopement, and threatening, in the event of her refusal, to ruin her by infamous calumnies.  Her father was infirm; her husband in a foreign land.  His base persecution would have met with no chastisement, had not I espoused the terrified woman’s cause.  These are the bare facts of the case.  He merited a flogging—­as you, a chivalric Virginian, will admit.  I—­a Northern man, with cooler blood, but I hope, as true a sense of honor and right as your own—­inflicted this, as I am prepared to testify before any number of witnesses.’”

[Mabel was reading very fast, her eyes hurrying from side to side of the page, her face blanching, and her hands more numb with every word.]

“The above is a verbatim copy of that portion of my friend’s letter which pertains to your affair,” continued Mr. Aylett.  “I shall write to Mrs. Sutton’s protege by the mail that carries this, informing him of my opportune discovery, through no instrumentality of his providing, of the poverty of his claims to the title of gentleman, and the audacity of his pretensions to my sister’s hand.  Have what letters, etc., you have received from him ready packed to return to his address when I come home.  My principal regret, in the review of the unfortunate entanglement, is that he ever visited Ridgeley and was known in the vicinity as your suitor.  You will suffer from this, in the future, more than you can now suppose.  A woman hardly ever outlives such a stigma.

“You may expect me on Thursday next, the 21st, at which time I hope to see most of the alterations I have ordered in an encouraging state of forwardness.  Should Jenkyns be in town when you get this, write out my directions clearly and in full, and send them, with sample of damask, by mail.

“Your affectionate brother,

“Winston Aylett”