n blank, and it almost unsettled my reason. There was a young
woman boarding at the same house where I went, who was kind to me, who
befriended me in various ways, and tried to help me to endure my sorrow.
She grew to be almost necessary to my endurance of myself. After a
little I married her. I did not take this step till I found that my
friendship with her, or, rather hers with me, was compromising her in
the eyes of others. Let me hurry over it, Ruth. We lived together but a
few weeks; then I was obliged to go abroad. Away from old scenes and
associations, and plunged into business cares, I gradually recovered my
usual tone of mind. But it was not till I came home again that I
discovered what a fatal blunder I had made. That young woman had not a
single idea in common with my plans and aims in life; she was ignorant,
uncultured, and, it seemed to me, unendurable. How I ever allowed myself
to be such a fool I do not know. But up to this time, I had at least,
not been a villain. I didn't desert her, Ruth; I made a deliberate
compromise with her; she was to take her child and go away, hundreds of
miles away, where I would not be likely ever to come in contact with her
again, and I was to take your mother's child and go where I pleased. Of
course I was to support her, and I have done so ever since; that was
eighteen years ago; she is still living, and the daughter is living. I
have always been careful to keep them supplied with money; I have tried
to have done for the girl what money could do; but I have never seen
their faces since that time. Now, Ruth, you know the miserable story.
There are a hundred details that I could give you, that perhaps would
lead you to have more pity for your father, if it did not lead you to
despise him more for his weakness. It is hard to be despised by one's
child. I tell you truly, Ruth, that the bitterest of this bitterness is
the thought of you."

The proud man's lip quivered and his voice trembled, just here.

Poor Ruth Erskine! "I am willing to do _anything_," she had said to
Marion, not two hours before; and here was a thing, the possibility of
which she had never dreamed, staring her in the face, waiting to be
done, and she felt that she could not do it. Oh, why was it necessary?
"Why not let everything be as it has been?" said that wily villain
Satan, whispering in her ears. "They were false vows; they are better
broken than kept. He does not love her, though he said he did. And ho