Half an hour later we went in to her mother, and the noble woman held out her arms to her daughter. As the maiden nestled to her breast, she said, holding out a hand to me, which I reverently kissed, "God in His mercy keep guard over you! His blessing be upon you both!"
* * * * *
These are my last written words in the record I have kept. From this day I commence a new life.
[BOOK THE SECOND.]
IN WHICH THE SECRET OF THE INHERITANCE TRANSMITTED TO GABRIEL CAREW IS REVEALED IN A SERIES OF LETTERS FROM ABRAHAM SANDIVAL, ESQ., ENGLAND, TO HIS FRIEND, MAXIMILIAN GALLENGA, ESQ., CONTRA COSTA CO., CALIFORNIA.
[I.]
My Dear Max,--For many months past you have complained that I have been extremely reticent upon domestic matters, and that I have said little or nothing concerning my son Reginald, who, since you quitted the centres of European civilisation to bury yourself in a sparsely populated Paradise, has grown from childhood to manhood. A ripe manhood, my dear Max, such as I, his father, approve of, and to the future development of which, now that a grave and strange crisis in his life has come to a happy ending, I look forward with loving interest. It is, I know, your affection for Reginald that causes you to be anxious for news of him. Well do I remember when you informed me of your fixed resolution to seek not only new scenes but new modes of life, how earnestly you strove to prevail upon me to allow him to accompany you.
"He is young and plastic," you said, "and I can train him to happiness. The fewer the wants, the more contented the lot of man."
You wished to educate Reginald according to the primitive views to which you had become so strongly wedded, and you did your best to convert me to them, saying, I remember, that I should doubtless suffer in parting with Reginald, but that it was a father's duty to make sacrifices for his children. You did not succeed. My belief was, and is, that man is born to progress, and that to go back into primitiveness, to commence again, as it were, the history of the world and mankind, as though we had been living in error through all the centuries, is a folly. I did not apply this criticism to you; I regarded your new departure not as a folly, but as a mistake. I doubt even now whether it has made you happier than you were, and I fancy I detect here and there in your letters a touch of sadness and regret--of which perhaps you are unconscious--that you should have cut yourself away from the busy life of multitudes of people. However, it is not my purpose now to enlarge upon this theme. The history I am about to relate is personal to myself and to Reginald, whose destiny it has been to come into close contact with a family, the head of which, Gabriel Carew, affords a psychological study as strange probably as was ever presented to the judgment of mankind.
There are various reasons for my undertaking a task which will occupy a great deal of time and entail considerable labour. The labour will be interesting to me, and its products no less interesting to you, who were always fond of the mystical. I have leisure to apply myself to it. Reginald is not at present with me; he has left me for a few weeks upon a mission of sunshine. This will sound enigmatical to you, but you must content yourself with the gradual and intelligible unfolding of the wonderful story I am about to narrate. Like a skilful narrator I shall not weaken the interest by giving information and presenting pictures to you in the wrong places. The history is one which it is my opinion should not be lost to the world; its phases are so remarkable that it will open up a field of inquiry which may not be without profitable results to those who study psychological mysteries. A few years hence I should not be able to recall events in their logical order; I therefore do so while I possess the power and while my memory is clear with respect to them.