"Now, my dearest, I am quite cheerful and light-hearted, but there is something I must tell you. I must warn you first, though, that this is a secret between ourselves; on no account must it be disclosed to your uncle or to any other person. Much may hang upon it--I do not know what; I prefer not to think; but at all events I must do nothing base or treacherous. If confidence has been reposed in me I must not betray it. But mark what I say, dear; it is only lately that I have come to a knowledge or a suspicion of certain things, and no hint must escape me of that knowledge or suspicion (it is a mixture of both) to any except yourself.
"In speaking of Mr. Seymour you would naturally suppose that you were speaking of an Englishman, the name being unmistakably English. But Mr. Seymour is not an Englishman, and therefore the name must be assumed. As to this I have no definite information, but it is so certainly. It did not occur to me to mention to you that Mr. Seymour was probably a foreigner, the matter seeming to be of such small importance. He speaks English fluently, with the slightest accent; speaks also French, German, Italian, and Russian, as to the precisely correct accent of any one of which I am not a competent judge. I am not given to curiosity, and have a habit of believing what I am told; that is, I do not look much below the surface of things. Now, this may lead a man into a scrape.
"Were I alone, without wife and child, I should, I dare say, allow myself to drift according to circumstances, but I am bound to consider you. Well, then, Mr. Seymour, with whose right name I am not acquainted, has ideas with which I am not sure whether I agree; he has a mission with which I am not sure whether I sympathize. There are large movements in public affairs which require deep investigation before one finally and firmly makes up one's mind. Take, for example, the revolutionary movement--the idea that all people should be upon an equality, the mission to bring this about. I had better not write to greater length upon this theme. If you do not quite understand my meaning I will explain it more fully when we are together again. In saying that I am deeply anxious to get back to England soon, and that I must by some means manage it, I am thinking more of you than of myself. Shortly before writing the letter which I sent to you yesterday, I allowed myself to be led away by certain disclosures which were made to me for the purpose of binding me to a certain course--Mr. Seymour and the friends he meets and makes thinking me ripe for it, perhaps, and giving me credit for being cleverer than I am; and it was an amateur enthusiasm which drove me to conclusions to which I would prefer not to commit myself--again, more for you and our dear little one's sake than for my own. There! The confession is made; perhaps you can thread your way through my mysterious allusions. And now, my darling--"