"Aunt Olive has kindly written to tell you exactly why I am here, so that
my letter need only be a supplement to hers. For whatever trouble and
anxiety I may have caused you, forgive me. The thought of it will be a
pang to me as long as I live.

"Since I left you I have been fully informed of circumstances in Major
Colquhoun's past career which make it impossible for me to live with him
as his wife. I find that I consented to marry him under a grave
misapprehension of his true character--that he is not at all a proper
person for a young girl to associate with, and that in point of fact his
mode of life has very much resembled that of one of those old-fashioned
heroes, Roderick Random or Tom Jones, specimens of humanity whom I hold in
peculiar and especial detestation.

"I consider I should be wanting in all right feeling if I held myself
bound to him by vows which I took in my ignorance of his history. But I am
afraid there will be some difficulty about the legal business. Kindly find
out for me what will be the best arrangement to make for our separation,
and tell me also if I ought to write to Major Colquhoun myself. I should
like it better if my father would relieve me of this dreadful necessity.

"Until we have arranged matters, I should prefer to stay here with Aunt
Olive. I am very well, and happier too, than I should have expected to be
after the shock of such a disappointment, though perhaps less so than I
ought in gratitude to be, considering the merciful deliverance I have had
from what would have been the shipwreck of my life.

"Your affectionate daughter,