"You know the rest: the discovery and the inquest that followed. Did I act my part well, Kene? I suppose so, by the result. That day--the first--you were with me when we examined John's desk: it was advised that I should look over his letters for any clue that perhaps they might show to the motive of his self-inflicted death. The large bundle of letters, Kene, came, I found, from Louisa Joliffe, and poor John's was no vain boast: she had been all to him that she had professed to be to me, and a traitor to both.
"Why did I marry her, you will naturally ask. Ah, why! why! Because my love for her fooled me into it: because, if you will, I was mad. When we met again, months afterwards, the passion that I thought I had killed within me, rose up with ten-fold force, and I yielded to it. To do so was not much less sinful (looking at it as I look now) than the other and greater crime. I saw it even as I stood with her before the altar, I saw it afterwards clearer and clearer. But I loved her even in spite of my better judgment; I love her even yet: and I have striven to do my duty by her in all indulgence, to shield her from the cares of the world.
"And there's my life's history. Oh, Kene, if I have been more sinful than other men, my merciful God knows what my expiation has been. Can you even faintly picture it to yourself? From a few minutes after the breath went out of poor John's body, my punishment set in. It was only fear just at first; it was the bitterest remorse afterwards that ever made a wreck of mortal man. I am not a murderer by nature, and John and I were dear friends. My days have been one long, wearing penance: regret for him and his shortened life, dread of my crime's discovery; one or the other filling every moment: remorse and repentance, repentance and remorse: and that it has been so is owing to Heaven's mercy. Not an hour of the day or night, but I would gladly have given up my own life to restore his. After the first confused horror had passed, I should have declared the truth at the time but for my mother's sake: in her state of health it would have killed her. When she died, the time had gone by for it: I had my father and my wife to consider later, and remained perforce silent. My father has thought my bodily health failed: in one sense so it did, for I have been wasting away from the first, dying slowly inch by inch.
"And that's all, Kene. When you shall have heard news of my death--it will be with you very close upon this letter--disclose the whole to Henry William Ollivera. With regard to my father, I leave the matter to you. If he in the slightest degree suspects me--and I can but think he must, after Winter's confession, and from the easy acquiescence he gave to my coming on the Continent for an indefinite period--then tell him the whole. Heaven bless you all, and grant you the peace that can spring alone of Jesus Christ's atonement! I have dared to think it mine for some little time now.
"Bede Greatorex."
When the tidings of Bede's death reached him, Sir Thomas Kene went out to seek an interview with Mr. Ollivera. The clergyman read the letter, and bent his head in prolonged silence.
"After all, I suppose John's grave will have to remain undisturbed," spoke the Judge. "Winter cleared his memory."
"Yes; better so, perhaps," was the slow, thoughtful reply. "If I had never before been thankful that I read the burial service over him, I should be so now. You see, I was right, Kene. God be merciful to us all, for we are all miserable sinners!"