'Mrs. Mutimer, I dare say you don't know me nor my name, but I write
to you because I think it only right as you should know the truth
about your husband, and because me and my sister can't go on any
longer as we are. My sister's name is Emma Vine. She was engaged to
be married to Richard M. two years before he knew you, and to the
last he put her off with make-believe and promises, though it was
easy to see what was meant. And when our sister Jane was on her very
death-bed, which she died not a week after he married you, and I
know well as it was grief as killed her. And now we haven't got
enough to eat for Emma and me and my two little children, for I am a
widow myself. But that isn't all. Because he found that his friends
in Hoxton was crying shame on him, he got it said as Emma had
misbehaved herself, which was a cowardly lie, and all to protect
himself. And now Emma is that ill she can't work; it's come upon her
all at once, and what's going to happen God knows. And his own
mother cried shame on him, and wouldn't live no longer in the big
house in Highbury. He offered us money--I will say so much--but Emma
was too proud, and wouldn't hear of it. And then he went giving her
a bad name. What do you think of your husband now, Mrs. Mutimer? I
don't expect nothing, but it's only right you should know.
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