connected with the remembrance of the
Dead Lake will vanish from your mind, and with them the image of a man
who"----

Feeling that emotion was overpowering him, he suddenly stopped, and
walked to the window to regain his composure. When after a moment he
again turned towards Lucille, he saw her leaning against the door post,
pale as death and with the same pained expression on her countenance
that he had noticed the first day of her arrival.

"Good heavens, what ails you?" exclaimed he; "Know then, if you cannot
bear the feeling of being indebted to me, that we are quits. If I have
succeeded in saving the life of your child, you have fully acquitted
this debt by preserving my own life."

She looked up with surprise.

"Yes," he continued; "on that very table, on the night I first met you,
I wrote a farewell letter to life. The letter still lies there, so you
see that I have changed my resolution. I do not say that I feel
grateful to you for it. Possibly non-existence has its dark side too,
but it cannot be worse than remaining between life and death neither
suited to the one, nor prepared for the other--enough of this! Is it
your fault if the life which you saved was not worth the trouble? Do
not let us prolong so painful a meeting. Our paths now diverge--You
return to your home, I----go where fate leads me. I am driven on by my
destiny like a stone which a boy rolls before him. I thank you for the
happy days I have spent in this wilderness; they have been the first,
for a long time, in which I felt that I lived. It is a pity that they
must pass away like every thing else in this perishable world."

"And why must they pass, away?" she asked looking up with anxious and
imploring eyes. "Why will you not accompany us?"

"Why? because"--he suddenly stopped. His eyes whilst wandering round
the room had fastened on the letter to his friend which lay on the
table, beside the travelling bag. A sudden thought flashed through
his mind. "You wish to test the value I set on your friendship, and
that it is not pride which prevents me from availing myself of your
kindness; well then take this letter, but promise not to read it before
to-morrow. Will you promise this?"

She only bowed without looking at him.

"This letter contains every explanation which I could not bring myself
to utter. When you have read it, you will understand that I can no
longer remain here, and that you ought not to detain me. And now give
me your ha