reading the letter! Pray, pray spare
yourself--"

He holds up his hand for silence.

"I am not thinking of myself," he says. "I am thinking of my dead
wife. If I give up the public vindication of my innocence, in my own
lifetime--if I leave the seal of the letter unbroken--do you say, as Mr.
Playmore says, that I shall be acting mercifully and tenderly toward the
memory of my wife?"

"Oh, Eustace, there cannot be the shadow of a doubt of it!"

"Shall I be making some little atonement for any pain that I may have
thoughtlessly caused her to suffer in her lifetime?"

"Yes! yes!"

"And, Valeria--shall I please You?"

"My darling, you will enchant me!"

"Where is the letter?"

"In your son's hand, Eustace."

He goes around to the other side of the bed, and lifts the baby's
little pink hand to his lips. For a while he waits so, in sad and secret
communion with himself. I see his mother softly open the door, and watch
him as I am watching him. In a moment more our suspense is at an end.
With a heavy sigh, he lays the child's hand back again on the sealed
letter; and by that one little action says (as if in words) to his
son--"I leave it to You!"

And so it ended! Not as I thought it would end; not perhaps as you
thought it would end. What do we know of our own lives? What do we know
of the fulfillment of our dearest wishes? God knows--and that is best.

Must I shut up the paper? Yes. There is nothing more for you to read or
for me to say.

Except this--as a postscript. Don't bear hardly, good people, on the
follies and the errors of my husband's life. Abuse _me_ as much as you
please. But pray think kindly of Eustace for my sake.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Law and the Lady, by Wilkie Collins

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