some day live to revenge the fate
poor old father, who prays that God will
helpless old man whose folly
madness have
There was no more. These lines were spread over the first leaf of a sheet of letter-paper; the second leaf, as well as a long strip of the first, had been torn away.
This was the only clue to the secret of his death which George Vane had left behind him.
Eleanor Vane folded the crumpled scrap of paper, and put it tenderly in her bosom. Then, falling on her knees, she clasped her hands, and lifted them towards the low ceiling of the little chamber.
“Oh, my God!” she cried; “hear the vow of a desolate creature, who has only one purpose left in life.”
Signora Picirillo knelt down beside her, and tried to clasp her in her arms.
“My dear, my dear!” she pleaded; “remember how this letter was written—remember the state of your father’s mind——”