I still seek an explanation concerning why you did not have your woman on that train, or waiting on that railway platform, with the rest of her family. If she had been, she would have died with them, but here is the difference -- unlike them, she would have been ours irrevocably. As it stands at the moment, the balance tips our way, but the chance of that is decreasing daily. In that, let me commend your wisdom for not striking at the return to her city, nor at her life. While we may yet lay our rightful claim, it would be far better for us to have the guarantee of same. Besides, it has only been since her departure from the solicitor's house that we have had sights enough in which to catch her.
Daughter of Eve. The Enemy gave her that name as a tribute, a prelude to her Queenship. On that night at the solicitor's, however, you had to remind her that it was Eve who first stepped out far enough to distrust the Enemy, thus setting into motion the chain by which her deceiver -- Our Father Below -- could come to take power over the World of Men. Hers was, if you please, that world's Original Sin. And is your woman not her Mother's Daughter, living as she is in frivolity and in the spoiling of her soul?
Usually, you tell her this truth in the softness that her mind calls Reason, after the parties have ended and she has slept off the night to find her head sore as she recovers from her drunkenness. On that particular night, however, you had to shout it as though you were calling across a canyon. That was just such a distance as you had permitted the Enemy to fix between you and your woman. And who had the privilege of the gentle voice, the slender fingers drawing the hair off her forehead? That awful solicitor's wife, of course. She had passed by there in the night to drink a glass of water in her inability to sleep, and ended by doing nothing more than let your woman lay herself open for what she is -- and do take some heart, my daughter. Your woman told that wife the truth, how she lives and pretends to love. She is worth nothing of the Enemy save His contempt, and she said as much. Yet you do well to despair, as none of that fazed the wife. She ignored all that truth and folded her into something she has not known since she, and we, lost her family -- an embrace filled so full of Kindness as to repulse and to choke even the stoutest among us. And there was not the self-interest that shines out of those "friends" she calls -- the sadness of your woman's heart began to weigh on the wife's heart as well. The right hand was undoing the work of the left -- and continues to do.
When your woman met her train next day, Mr and Mrs Solicitor petitioned the Enemy for her safety, after which they extended something dangerous enough on its face, but far worse should it come to pass. They invited her to come out and pay a visit at her convenience. Ah, does there not spring up a fragment of hope at those last words? "At her convenience." Do you not see the inch the Enemy has allowed us? Our efforts must increase, to be sure, but continue to make her remember who she is and where you have her. Cause her to glance at the calendar, that she may not forget where she has been invited, and into whose company. Even more so, call to her mind how she thinks her urban friends are Sophisticated. That is to say, they are too far advanced for believing in the Enemy, or -- and this is our best yet -- in us. It must then follow that these she met in the far-off town, however much they come to be Well-Meaning People, are simpletons over their beliefs. This is a formula which has served us handsomely -- our tables as well as our objectives.
Another weekend is coming. After it has gone, please inform me how well you have driven all thoughts from her mind except as concern her life and its style. Prove to me, and indeed to all the watching Hell, that you were worthy to become so young a Temptress.
Your affectionate but irritatedly perturbed mother,
Slumtrimpet