“Hush!” and he closed my lips so that they could not moan. “The truth is better than life, better even than a good name. When your father knows the truth, all else will be clear. I shall abide by his decision, whatever it be; he has a right to it. Theodora,” his voice faltered, “make him understand, some day, that if I had married you, he never should have wanted a son,—your poor father.”
These were almost the last words Max said on this, the last hour that we were together by ourselves. For minutes and minutes he held me in his arms, silently; and I shut my eyes, and felt, as if in a dream, the sunshine and the flower-scents, and the loud singing of the two canaries in Penelope's greenhouse. Then,-with one kiss, he put me down softly from my place, and left me alone.
I have been alone ever since; God only, knows how alone.
The rest I cannot tell to-day.
CHAPTER II. HIS STORY.
This is the last, probably, of those “letters never sent,” which may reach you one day; when or how, we know not. All that is, is best.
You say you think it advisable that there should be an accurate written record of all that passed between your family and myself on the final day of parting, in order that no further conduct of mine may be misconstrued or misjudged. Be it so. My good name is worth preserving; for it must never be any disgrace to you that Max Urquhart loved you.
Since this record is to be minute and literal, perhaps it will be better I should give it impersonally, as a statement rather than a letter.