“Gentlemen,” said she after a silence of some minutes, “I would request a favour of you: you have a right to know on whom you confer an obligation. I will not therefore stifle a confession which covers me with shame; but permit me to comprise it in as few words as possible.

“I was born in Strasbourg of respectable parents; their names I must at present conceal: my father still lives, and deserves not to be involved in my infamy; if you grant my request, you shall be informed of my family name. A villain made himself master of my affections, and to follow him I quitted my father’s house. Yet though my passions overpowered my virtue, I sank not into that degeneracy of vice, but too commonly the lot of women who make the first false step. I loved my seducer; dearly loved him! I was true to his bed; this baby, and the youth who warned you, my lord baron, of your lady’s danger, are the pledges of our affection. Even at this moment I lament his loss, though ’tis to him that I owe all the miseries of my existence.