"As you have travelled so far along this dolorous way, take courage and travel a little farther.

To stop, to turn back, is only to leave your mind open to all manner of imaginations worse very likely than the truth.
I will be quite plain with you.

This episode--which I do not attempt to explain or excuse--took place, and ended, several years before I first met your mother.

And it ended absolutely.

Never, by either written or spoken word, have I held any communication with Lesbia Faircloth since.
Never have I attempted to see her--this in the interests of her reputation every bit as much as in those of my own.