What it costs me to write of her in
these terms, I must leave you to imagine. The time has gone by when
any consideration of distress to my own feelings can weigh with me.
Whatever I can say which will open your eyes to the real danger, and
strengthen your conviction of the instant necessity of averting it, I
say in despite of myself, without hesitation and without reserve.
"One word more, and I have done.
"The last time you were so good as to come to this house, do you
remember how Magdalen embarrassed and distressed us by questioning
you about her right to bear her father's name? Do you remember her
persisting in her inquiries, until she had forced you to acknowledge
that, legally speaking, she and her sister had No Name? I venture to
remind you of this, because you have the affairs of hundreds of clients
to think of, and you might well have forgotten the circumstance.
Whatever natural reluctance she might otherwise have had to deceiving
us, and degrading herself, by the use of an assumed name, that
conversation with you is certain to have removed. We must discover her
by personal description--we can trace her in no other way.
"I can think of nothing more to guide your decision in our deplorable
emergency.
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