ABSTRACT
I was at the present instant the sole depositary of this awful secret. It was my office to take care that the intelligence should never reach the person most deeply concerned in it. But how was this to be effected? I had intercepted a letter. But how was I to be secure that this letter, especially if it remained unanswered, would not be followed by another? William himself would infallibly set out in search of his beloved. When and from what quarter of the heavens would he come? How was it possible for me to encounter and intercept him? If I desired to write to him, and endeavour, by a representation of the real state of things, to / prevail on him to withhold his intrusion, and suffer my wife to remain in her present state of enviable ignorance, to what place was I to address my letter? He had landed on the coast of Sussex, and the post-mark on the cover of what he had written was ‘Brighthelmstone’. But was there any chance that he would remain there long enough, for the expostulation I should address to him to reach him?
