I enclose
you three letters to my brother, father, and sisters. I have no legal
claim on any of them, but I certainly have a moral claim on my brother.
It is he who has impoverished the estate, so that, even had I not
quarrelled with my father, there could never, after provision had been
made for my sisters, have been anything to come to me.

"I do not ask you to humiliate yourself, by delivering these letters
personally. I would advise you to post them from Cairo, enclosing in
each a note saying how I fell, and that you are fulfilling my
instructions, by sending the letter I wrote before leaving you. It may
be that you will receive no reply. In that case, whatever happens to
you and the child, you will have nothing to reproach yourself for.
Possibly my father may have succeeded to the title and, if for no other
reason, he may then be willing to grant you an allowance, on condition
that you do not return to England; as he would know that it would be
nothing short of a scandal, that the wife of one of his sons was trying
to earn her bread in this country.

"Above all, dear, I ask you not to destroy these letters. You may, at
first, scorn the idea of appealing for help; but the time might come,
as it came to us in London, when you feel that fate is too strong for
you, and that you can struggle no longer. Then you might regret, for
the sake of the child, that you had not sent these letters.

"It is a terrible responsibility that I am leaving you. I well know
that you will do all, dear, that it is possible for you to do, to avoid
the necessity for sending these letters. That I quite approve, if you
can struggle on. God strengthen you to do it! It is only if you fail
that I say, send them. My father may, by this time, regret that he
drove me from home. He may be really anxious to find me, and at least
it is right that he should have the opportunity of making what amends
he can. From my sisters, I know that you can have little but sympathy;
but that, I feel sure, they will give you, and even sympathy is a great
deal, to one who has no friends. I feel it sorely that I should have
naught to leave you but my name, and this counsel. Earnestly I hope and
pray that it may never be needed.

"Yours till death,

"Gregory Hilliard Hartley."

Gregory then opened the letter to his grandfather.

"Dear Father,

"You will not receive this letter till after my death. I leave it
behind me, while I go up with General Hicks to the Sou