By Wit of Woman

BY WIT OF WOMAN
ARTHUR W. MARCHMONT
Author of When I was Czar By Snare of Love A Dash for a Throne etc etc
ILLUSTRATIONS BY S. H. VEDDER
LONDON WARD LOCK & CO. LIMITED 1906
CONTENTS
ILLUSTRATIONS

To John P. Gilmore, Jefferson City, Missouri, U.S.A.
MY DEAR BROTHER-IN-LAW,—For years you have believed me dead, and I have made no effort to disturb that belief.
I am dying now, alone in Paris, far from my beloved country; unjustly degraded, dishonoured and defamed. This letter and its enclosure will not be despatched until the grave has closed over me.
To you I owe a debt of deep gratitude. You have taken and cared for my darling child, Christabel; you have stood between her and the world, and have spared her from the knowledge and burden of her father's unmerited shame. You can yet do something more—give her your name, so that mine with its disgrace may be forgotten; unless—it is a wild thought that has come to me in my last hours, the offspring of my hopeless melancholy—unless she should ever prove to have the strength, the courage, the wit and the will to essay that which I have endeavoured fruitlessly—the clearance of my name and honour.