Belgium. The reason why we never visited England during her lifetime
was that she could, and probably would, have made my previous
conduct and my hostility to popular religion an excuse for wresting
you from me. I need say no more of her, and am sorry it was
necessary to mention her at all.

"I will now tell you what induced me to secure you for myself. It
was not natural affection; I did not love you then, and I knew that
you would be a serious encumbrance to me. But, having brought you
into the world, and then broken through my engagements with your
mother, I felt bound to see that you should not suffer for my
mistake. Gladly would I have persuaded myself that she was (as the
gossips said) the fittest person to have charge of you; but I knew
better, and made up my mind to discharge my responsibility as well
as I could. In course of time you became useful to me; and, as you
know, I made use of you without scruple, but never without regard to
your own advantage. I always kept a secretary to do whatever I
considered mere copyist's work. Much as you did for me, I think I
may say with truth that I never imposed a task of absolutely no
educational value on you. I fear you found the hours you spent over
my money affairs very irksome; but I need not apologize for that
now: you must already know by experience how necessary a knowledge
of business is to the possessor of a large fortune.

"I did not think, when I undertook your education, that I was laying
the foundation of any comfort for myself. For a long time you were
only a good girl, and what ignorant people called a prodigy of
learning. In your circumstances a commonplace child might have been
both. I subsequently came to contemplate your existence with a
pleasure which I never derived from the contemplation of my own. I