f, immediately met her eyes. Taking it out
with a slow and reverent touch, she began to read the long and closely
written letter which it contained.

And the little candle burned on, shedding its rays over her bended head
and upon the dismal walls about her, with a persistency that seemed to
bring out, as in letters of fire, the hidden history of long ago, with
its vanished days and its forgotten midnights.

XXXIX.

FROM A. TO Z.

"A naked human heart."--YOUNG.

"My Beloved Child:

"So may I call you in this the final hour of our separation, but never
again, dear one, never again. When I said to you, just twenty-four hours
ago, that my sin was buried and my future was clear, I spake as men
speak who forget the justice of God and dream only of his mercy. An
hour's time convinced me that an evil deed once perpetrated by a man, is
never buried so that its ghost will not rise. Do as we will, repent as
we may, the shadowy phantom of a stained and unrighteous youth is never
laid; nor is a man justified in believing it so, till death has closed
his eyes, and fame written its epitaph upon his tomb.

"Paula, I am at this hour wandering in search of the being who holds the
secret of my life and who will to-morrow blazon it before all the world.
It is with no hope I seek him. God has not brought me to this pass, to
release me at last, from shame and disgrace. Suffering and the loss of
all my sad heart cherished, wait at my gates. Only one boon remains, and
that is, your sympathy and the consolation of your regard. These, though
bestowed as friends bestow them, are very precious to me; I cannot see
them go, and that they may not, I tell you the full story of my life.

"My youth was happy--my early youth, I mean. Bertram's father was a dear
brother to me, and my mother a watchful guardian and a tender friend. At
fifteen, I entered a bank, the small bank in Grotewell, which you ought
to remember. From the lowest position in it, I gradually worked my way
up till I occupied the cashier's place; and was just congratulating
myself upon my prospects, when Ona Delafield returned from
boarding-school, a young lady.

"Paula, there is a fascination, which some men who have known nothing
deeper and higher, call love. I, who in those days had cherished but few
thoughts beyond the ordinary reach of a narrow and somewhat selfish
business mind, imagined that the well-spring of all romance had bubbled
up within me, when my e