The Master of Man: The Story of a Sin

by Sir Hall Caine

"DEAR MASTER,—When this letter comes to your hand you will know the occasion for it. I am aware that it cannot have the authority of a will, but (in the absence of a more regular document) I trust the Clerk of the Rolls may find a way to act upon it as an expression of my last wishes.

"I desire that Janet Curphey should be suitably provided for as long as she lives. She has been a mother to me all my life, the only mother I have ever known.

"I desire that Mrs. Collister of Baldromma may have such a provision made for her as will liberate her from the tyrannies of her husband.

"I desire that Thomas Vondy, formerly the jailer at Castle Rushen, should be taken care of in any way you may consider best.

"Finally, if I do not live to return home, I desire that everything else of which I die possessed should be offered to Fenella Stanley as a mark of my deep love and devotion.

"I think that is all."

Having signed, sealed and inscribed his letter he put it in his breast pocket. Then taking a drawer out of the bureau he carried it to the sofa, intending to destroy the contents of it.

The first thing that came to his hand was the letter which Alick Gell had given him at Derby Haven. It was marked "To be opened after we have gone," and turned out to be a memorandum to his father's executors, telling them he was leaving the island with no intention of returning to it, and asking (as his only request) that in the event of an inheritance becoming due to him, seven hundred pounds, which had been advanced to him at various times, should be repaid to Deemster Victor Stowell—"the best friend man ever had."

Feeling a certain twinge, Stowell hesitated for a moment, with the memorandum shaking in his hand, and then threw it into the fire.

There were other papers of the same kind (I O U's and the like) which shared the same fate, and then up from the bottom of the drawer, came a leather-bound book. It was "Isobel's Diary." He had decided to destroy that also. As the sanctuary of his father's soul he could not allow it to be looked into by other eyes.