ve confound me
as she confounded me now. Here is her message: "You can't come back. An
architect from Edinburgh asserts his resolution to repair the kirk and
the manse. The man only waits for his lawful authority to begin. The
money is ready--but who has found it? Mr. Architect is forbidden to
tell. We live in awful times. How is Felicia?"

Naturally concluding that Judith's mind must be deranged, I went
downstairs to meet my son-in-law (for the first time since the events
of yesterday) at the late breakfast which is customary in this house. He
was waiting for me--but Felicia was not present. "She breakfasts in
her room this morning," says Marmaduke; "and I am to give you the
explanation which has already satisfied your daughter. Will you take
it at great length, sir? or will you have it in one word?" There was
something in his manner that I did not at all like--he seemed to be
setting me at defiance. I said, stiffly, "Brevity is best; I will have
it in one word."

"Here it is then," he answered. "I am Barrymore."

POSTSCRIPT ADDED BY FELICIA.

If the last line extracted from my dear father's Diary does not contain
explanation enough in itself, I add some sentences from Marmaduke's
letter to me, sent from the theater last night. (N. B.--I leave out the
expressions of endearment: they are my own private property.)

... "Just remember how your father talked about theaters and actors,
when I was at Cauldkirk, and how you listened in dutiful agreement with
him. Would he have consented to your marriage if he had known that I was
one of the 'spouting rogues,' associated with the 'painted Jezebels'
of the playhouse? He would never have consented--and you yourself, my
darling, would have trembled at the bare idea of marrying an actor.

"Have I been guilty of any serious deception? and have my friends been
guilty in helping to keep my secret? My birth, my name, my surviving
relatives, my fortune inherited from my father--all these important
particulars have been truly stated. The name of Barrymore is nothing but
the name that I assumed when I went on the stage.

"As to what has happened, since our return from Switzerland, I own
that I ought to have made my confession to you. Forgive me if I weakly
hesitated. I was so fond of you; and I so distrusted the Puritanical
convictions which your education had rooted in your mind, that I put it
off from day to day. Oh, my angel....!

"Yes, I kept the address of my new house a