nowhere to be
found. It ran as follows:--

"and I can assure you I cannot afford to marry. Besides, I don't know
that she cares anything for me now. It was very wrong; but, sir, when
you remember that I am a young man and that Susan was so attractive, I
think I may be forgiven. I hope some day to make her amends if she still
loves me, but, sir, I must wait.--Yours truly,

"WALTER CADMAN.

"MR. MICHAEL TREVANION."

This was the plot. The Shiptons some short time ago had an assistant in
their employ, who was dismissed for improper intimacy with a servant-girl
named Susan Coleman, who lived next door. As was the case with most
servant-girls in those days, nobody ever heard her surname, and she was
known by the name of Susan only. The affair was kept a profound secret,
for she was a member of the congregation to which Michael belonged; and
Mr. Shipton, for trade reasons, was anxious that it should not be made
public. Michael, as one of the deacons, knew all about it, but Robert
knew nothing. The girl left her place before the consequences of her
crime became public; and Michael had written to the man Cadman, telling
him he ought to support the child of which he was the father. When he
received the answer, a sudden thought struck him. The last page might be
used for a purpose, and so he hatched his monstrous scheme, and left the
paper where he knew that, sooner or later, Robert would see it.

When Michael came home, Robert was not there; a bill-head lay near
Cadman's note with the brief announcement--

"I have left for ever.--Your affectionate son,

"ROBERT."

Michael's first emotion, strange to say, was something like joy. He had
succeeded, and Robert was removed from the wiles of the tempter. But
when the morning came, he looked again, and he saw the words "for ever,"
and he realised that his son had gone; that he would never see him any
more; that perhaps he might have committed self-murder. His human nature
got the better of every other nature in him, divine or diabolic, and he
was distracted. He could not pray after his wont; he tried, but he had
no utterance; he felt himself rebellious, blasphemous, impious, and he
rose from his bedside without a word. He went out into the street and
down to the shore, trembling lest he should hear from the first man he
saw that his son's body had been thrown up on the sand; and then he
remembered how Robert could swim, and that he would