n every respect--that is,
if I should die before I see you again, which I hope may not be the
case.

"It is my present intention to return to London shortly, and tell
you personally the story of such adventures as have chanced to me
since I left Carlton House Terrace last July, but 'man proposes, and
God disposes,' and one can be certain of nothing. I need not ask you
to keep all my affairs going as if I myself were on the scene of
action, and also to inform the servants of my household to prepare
for my return, as I may be back in town any day. I must thank you
for your prompt and businesslike denial of the report of my death,
which I understand has been circulated by the press. I am well--as
well as a man of my age can expect to be, save for a troublesome
heart-weakness, which threatens a brief and easy ending to my
career. But for this, I should esteem myself stronger than some men
who are still young. And one of the strongest feelings in me at the
present moment (apart altogether from the deep affection and devout
gratitude I have towards the one who under my Will is to inherit all
I have spent my life to gain) is my friendship for you, my dear
Vesey,--a friendship cemented by the experience of years, and which
I trust may always be unbroken, even remaining in your mind as an
unspoilt memory after I am gone where all who are weary, long, yet
fear to go! Nevertheless, my faith is firm that the seeming darkness
of death will prove but the veil which hides the light of a more
perfect life, and I have learned, through the purity of a great and
unselfish human love, to believe in the truth of the Love
Divine.--Your friend always,
DAVID HELMSLEY."

This letter finished, he went out and posted it with all the others he
had written, and then passed the evening in listening to the organist
practising grave anthems and voluntaries in the Cathedral. Every little
item he could think of in his business affairs was carefully gone over
during the three days he spent in Exeter,--nothing was left undone that
could be so arranged as to leave his worldly concerns in perfect and
unquestionable order--and when, as "Mr. David," he paid his last daily
score at the little Temperance hotel where he had stayed since the
Tuesday night, and started by the early train of Saturday morning