ieve now in my desire to stand by
you, however terrible the mistake you have made.

"Of course, we put the worst interpretation on your silence about
the person you had made your wife. I hurried up to town at once,
but you had gone from your old rooms and left not a trace. I
learnt, however, that you had a sister who used to come to see
you sometimes. I suppose that is your wife. Naturally I assumed
you had acted towards me as you had because you thought I should
reproach you for having spoilt your life. How little you seem to
know me, Morgan! _That_ is what I have to reproach you with. Why
was I so little in your confidence? Did you think me incapable of
sympathising with you because you are a young man and I an old?
How little you seem to know me, Morgan, I must repeat again.

"I do not want to indulge in useless retrospect. I do not want to
exercise my imagination and yours in tracing out some more
desirable course of events that might have resulted from your
acting otherwise. But I cannot help giving expression to my deep
sorrow at the plight in which you now must be. I do not know how
the whole thing came about--what led to your acquaintance with
the lady who is now your wife; but I do wish that, instead of
writing me that curt letter, you had had sufficient belief in my
love and sympathy to come to me despite all. My pen is powerless
to express all that is in my heart. I can only just tell you that
this is the worst heart-ache I have had in my life.

"If this reaches you, dear Morgan, don't be too proud to let me
hear from you at once. I am an old man now, remember, and this
suspense is killing. Especially as I have come so near to finding
you and have only just missed you by a day or two. On coming up
to town I at once called at Mr. Ingram's flat, and then I learnt
for the first time he had married a great society lady. The
commissionaire gave me his new address in Grosvenor Gardens, and
there I was fortunate enough to find him. He seemed astonished to
hear you had got married and disappeared. I asked him about your
quarrel with him, and then he told me what he knew--that you had
run through all the six thousand pounds, had been afraid to tell
me, and had behaved abominably rudely to him because he made to
you certain suggestions for