f all how she used to feel towards her father. She had
loved him, she knew, and her mother had loved him, ay, long after love
became only memory. He had loved them, too, in his quiet way. Olive
thought, with tender remembrance, of his kiss, on that early morning
when, for the last time, he had left his home. And for her mother!
Often, during Mrs. Rothesay's declining days, had she delighted to talk
of the time when she was a young, happy wife, and of the dear love that
Angus bore her. Something, too, she hinted of her own faults, which had
once taken away that love, and something in Olive's own childish memory
told her that this was true. But she repelled the thought, remembering
that her father and mother were now together before God.

At length with an effort she opened the letter. She started to see its
date--the last night Captain Rothesay ever spent at home--the night,
which of all others, she had striven to remember clearly, because they
were all three so happy together, and he had been so kind, so loving, to
her mother and to her. Thinking of him on this wise, with a most tender
sadness, she began to read:

"Olive Rothesay--My dear Child!--It may be many--many years--(I pray
so, God knows!) before you open this letter. If so, think of me as I sit
writing it now--or rather as I sat an hour ago--by your mother's side,
with your arms round my neck. And, thus thinking of me, consider what a
fierce struggle I must have had to write as I am going to do--to confess
what I never would have confessed while I lived, or while your mother
lived. I do it, because remorse is strong upon me; because I would fain
that my Olive--the daughter who may comfort me, if I live--should, if I
die, make atonement for her father's sins. Ay, sins. Think how I must be
driven, thus to humble myself before my own child--to unfold to my pure
daughter that--But I will tell the tale plainly, without any exculpation
or reserve.

"I was very young when I married Sybilla Hyde. God be my witness,
I loved her then, and in my inmost heart I have loved her evermore.
Remember, I say this--hear it as if I were speaking from my
grave--Olive, _I did love your mother_. Would to Heaven she had loved
me, or shown her love, only a little more!

"Soon after our marriage I was parted from my wife for some years. You,
a girl, ought not to know--and I pray may never know--the temptations of
the world and of man's own nature. I knew both, and I withstood both.
I