'It now only remains for me to advert to the two enclosures contained in this letter.
'The first is addressed to Mr. Blyth. I leave it to reach his hands through you; because I am ashamed to communicate with him directly, as from myself. If what you said about my child be the truth—and I cannot dispute it—then, in my ignorance of her identity, in my estrangement from the house of her protector since she first entered it, I have unconsciously committed such an offense against Mr. Blyth as no contrition can ever adequately atone for. Now indeed I feel how presumptuously merciless my bitter conviction of the turpitude of my own sin, has made me towards what I deemed like sins in others. Now also I know, that, unless you have spoken falsely, I have been guilty of casting the shame of my own deserted child in the teeth of the very man who had nobly and tenderly given her an asylum in his own home. The unutterable anguish which only the bare suspicion of this has inflicted on me might well have been my death. I marvel even now at my own recovery from it.
'You are free to look at the letter to Mr. Blyth which I now entrust to you. Besides the expression of my shame, my sorrow, and my sincere repentance, it contains some questions, to which Mr. Blyth, in his Christian kindness, will, I doubt not, readily write answers. The questions only refer to the matter of the child's identity; and the address I have written down at the end, is that of the house of business of my lawyer and agent in London. He will forward the document to me, and will then arrange with Mr. Blyth the manner in which a fit provision from my property may be best secured to his adopted child. He has deserved her love, and to him I gratefully and humbly leave her. For myself, I am not worthy even to look upon her face.
'The second enclosure is meant for my son; and is to be delivered in the event of your having already disclosed to him the secret of his father's guilt. But, if you have not done this—if any mercy towards me has entered into your heart, and pleads with it for pardon and for silence—then destroy the letter, and tell him that he will find a communication waiting for him at the house of my agent. He wrote to ask my pardon—he has it freely. Freely, in my turn, I hope to have his forgiveness for severities exercised towards him, which were honestly meant to preserve him betimes from ever falling as his father fell, but which I now fear were persevered in too hardly and too long. I have suffered for this error, as for others, heavily—more heavily, when he abandoned his home, than I should ever wish him to know. You said he lived with you and that you were fond of him. Be gentle with him, now that he is ill, for his mother's sake.
'My hand grows weaker and weaker: I can write no more. Let me close this letter by entreating your pardon. If you ever grant it me, then I also ask your prayers.'
With this the letter ended.
Matthew sat holding it open in his hand for a little while. He looked round once or twice at the enclosed letter from Mr. Thorpe to his son, which lay close by on the table—but did not destroy it; did not so much as touch it even.
Zack spoke to him before long from the inner room.
'I'm sure you must have done reading your letter by this time, Mat. I've been thinking, old fellow, of the talk we used to have, about going back to America together, and trying a little buffalo hunting and roaming about in the wilds. If my father takes me into favor again, and can be got to say Yes, I should so like to go with you, Mat. Not for too long, you know, because of my mother, and my friends over here. But a sea voyage, and a little scouring about in what you call the lonesome places, would do me such good! I don't feel as if I should ever settle properly to anything, till I've had my fling. I wonder whether my father would let me go?'
'I know he would, Zack.'
'You! How?'
'I'll tell you how another time. You shall have your run, Zack,—you shall have your heart's content along with me.' As he said this, he looked again at Mr. Thorpe's letter to his son, and took it up in his hand this time.
'Oh! how I wish I was strong enough to start! Come in here, Mat, and let's talk about it.'
'Wait a bit, and I will.' Pronouncing those words, he rose from his chair. 'For your sake, Zack,' he said, and dropped the letter into the fire.
'What can you be about all this time?' asked young Thorpe.
'Do you call to mind,' said Mat, going into the bedroom, and sitting down by the lad's pillow—'Do you call to mind me saying, that I'd be brothers with you, when first us two come together? Well, Zack, I've only been trying to be as good as my word.'
'Trying? What do you mean? I don't understand, old fellow.'
'Never mind: you'll make it out better some day. Let's talk about getting aboard ship, and going a buffalo- hunting now.'
They discussed the projected expedition, until Zack grew sleepy. As he fell off into a pleasant doze, Mat went back into the front-room; and, taking from the table Mr. Thorpe's letter to Mr. Blyth, left Kirk Street immediately for the painter's house.
It had occurred to Valentine to unlock his bureau twice since his return from the country, but on neither occasion had he found it necessary to open that long narrow drawer at the back, in which he had secreted the Hair Bracelet years ago. He was consequently still totally ignorant that it had been taken away from him, when Matthew Grice entered the painting-room, and quietly put it into his hand.
Consternation and amazement so thoroughly overpowered him, that he suffered his visitor to lock the door against all intruders, and then to lead him peremptorily to a chair, without uttering a single word of inquiry or expostulation. All though the narrative, on which Mat now entered, he sat totally speechless, until Mr. Thorpe's letter was placed in his hands, and he was informed that Madonna was still to be left entirely under his own care. Then, for the first time, his cheeks showed symptoms of returning to their natural color, and he exclaimed fervently, 'Thank God! I shan't lose her after all! I only wish you had begun by telling me of that, the moment you came into the room!'
Saying this, he began to read Mr. Thorpe's letter. When he had finished it, and looked up at Mat, the tears were in his eyes.
'I can't help it,' said the simple-hearted painter. 'It would even affect
