knew that my life was nearing its end I felt more and more that you must know. One or two things I’m afraid I didn’t make clear ... that I loved the man who is your father. Love alone could be my justification—without that I could never have lived through these years.

[3]

“The man you have called father never suspected the truth. He trusted me. It has been part of my punishment that through all these years I have had to endure the constant manifestations of his love and confidence. But for that one lapse in the second year of my marriage, I was absolutely faithful in all my obligations to him. And he was kind to you and proud of you. He did all for you that a father could, never dreaming that you were not his own. It was one of my sorrows that I couldn’t give him a child of his own. Things went badly with him in his last years, as you know, and what I leave to you—it will be about fifty thousand dollars—I inherited from my father, and it will help you find your place in the world.

“Your father has no idea of your existence.... Ours was a midsummer madness, at a time when we were both young. I only knew him a little while, and I have never heard from him. My love for him never wholly died. Please, dear, don’t think harshly of me, but there have been times when I would have given my life for a sight of him. After all you are his—his as much as mine. You came to me from him—strangely dear and beautiful. In my mind you have always been his, and I loved you the dearer. I loved him, but I could not bring myself to leave the man you have called father for him. He was not the kind of man women run away with....

“When I’m gone I want you to put yourself near him—learn to know him, if that should be possible. I[4] am trusting you. You would never, I know, do him an injury. Some day he may need you. Remember, he does not know—it may be he need never know. But oh, be kind to him....”

[4]

He stared at the words. Had it been one of those unaccountable affairs—he had heard of such—where a gently reared woman falls prey to a coarse-fibered man in every way her inferior? The man might be common, low, ignorant and cruel. Bruce had been proud of his ancestry. The Storrs were of old American stock, and his mother’s family, the Bruces, had been the foremost people in their county for nearly a century. He had taken a pardonable pride in his background.... That night when he had stumbled out of the house after hearing his mother’s confession he had felt the old friendly world recede. The letters, sealed and entrusted to the family 

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