FROM A. TO Z.
“A naked human heart.”—Young.
“My Beloved Child:
“So may I call you in this the final hour of our separation, but never again, dear one, never again. When I said to you, just twenty-four hours ago, that my sin was buried and my future was clear, I spake as men speak who forget the justice of God and dream only of his mercy. An hour’s time convinced me that an evil deed once perpetrated by a man, is never buried so that its ghost will not rise. Do as we will, repent as we may, the shadowy phantom of a stained and unrighteous youth is never laid; nor is a man justified in believing it so, till death has closed his eyes, and fame written its epitaph upon his tomb.
“Paula, I am at this hour wandering in search of the being who holds the secret of my life and who will to-morrow blazon it before all the world. It is with no hope I seek him. God has not brought me to this pass, to release me at last, from shame and disgrace. Suffering and the loss of all my sad heart cherished, wait at my gates. Only one boon remains, and that is, your sympathy and the consolation of your regard. These, though bestowed as friends bestow them, are very precious to me; I cannot see them go, and that they may not, I tell you the full story of my life.
“My youth was happy—my early youth, I mean. Bertram’s father was a dear brother to me, and my mother a watchful guardian and a tender friend. At fifteen, I entered a bank, the small bank in Grotewell, which you ought to remember. From the lowest position in it, I gradually worked my way up till I occupied the cashier’s place; and was just congratulating myself upon my prospects, when Ona Delafield returned from boarding-school, a young lady.
“Paula, there is a fascination, which some men who have known nothing deeper and higher, call love. I, who in those days had cherished but few thoughts beyond the ordinary reach of a narrow and somewhat selfish business mind, imagined that the well-spring of all romance had bubbled up within me, when my eyes first fell upon this regal blonde, with her sleepy, inscrutable eyes and bewildering smile. Ulysses within sound of the siren’s voice, was nothing to it. He had been warned of his danger and had only his own curiosity to combat, while I was not even aware of my peril, and floated within reach of this woman’s power, without making an effort to escape. She was so subtle in her influence, Paula; so careless in the very exercise of her sovereignty. She never seemed to command; yet men and women obeyed her. Peculiarities which mar the matron, are often graces in a young, unmarried girl, whose thoughts are a mystery, and whose emotions an untried field. I believed I had found the queen of all beauty and when in an unguarded hour she betrayed her first appreciation of my devotion, I seemed to burst into a Paradise of delights, where every step I took, only the more intoxicated and bewildered me. My first realization of the sensuous and earthly character of my happiness came with the glimpse of your child-face on that never-to-be-forgotten day when we met beside the river. Like a star seen above the glare of a conflagration, the pure spirit that informed your glance, flashed on my burning soul, and for a moment I knew that in you budded the kind of woman-nature which it befitted a man to seek; that in the hands of such a one as you would make, should he trust his honor and bequeath his happiness. But when did a lover ever break the bonds that imprisoned his fancy, at the inspiration of a passing voice. I went back to Ona and forgot the child by the river.
“Paula, I have no time to utter regrets. This is a hard plain tale which I have to relate; but if you love me still—if, as I have sometimes imagined, you have always loved me—think what my life had been if I had heeded the warning which God vouchsafed me on that day, and contrast it with what it is, and what it must be.
“I went back to Ona, then, and the hold which she had upon me from the first, took form and shape. As well as she could love any one, she loved me, and though she had offers from one or two more advantageous sources, she finally decided that she would risk the future and accept me, if her father consented to the alliance. You who are the niece of the man of whom I must now speak, may or may not know what that meant. I doubt if you do; he left Grotewell while you were a child, and any gossip concerning him must ever fall short of the real truth. Enough, then, that it meant, if Jacob Delafield could see in my future any promises of success sufficient to warrant him in accepting me as his son-in-law, no woman living ought to hesitate to trust me with her hand. He was the Squire of the town, and as such entitled to respect, but he was also something more, as you will presently discover. His answer to my plea was: