He made a movement as if to drop the paper into the fire, paused, and his eyes rested on the writing, although they did not distinguish the words. And there was no need; for they only represented in a feeble way thoughts which were always present to his mind.
‘I must speak’—such were the written words—‘or I shall lose all self-restraint. You cannot be harmed by what is put down here. Perhaps you will never see it; you certainly shall not until after my funeral, and then you may be able to understand and think none the less kindly of me for this confession.
‘You have seen me in my darkest moods, and you have wondered at my melancholy—wondered why I who had been granted such a large measure of what the world esteems prosperity should find no contentment in it. I have partly explained the cause to Philip: I could not explain it to you.
‘With bitter reason I early learned to believe that money—mere money—was the source of all earthly happiness. I was mistaken, and found out my mistake too late. I should have been content, perhaps happy in a way, if I could have gone on to the end without the knowledge that the want of Love is the only real sorrow which can enter into man or woman’s life. But there was nobody to lead me out of the miserable conviction which took possession of my mind as I watched those dearest to me fall one by one, not with the merciful swiftness of soldiers in battle, but in the lingering torments of soul and body which come to those who are poor.
‘Left alone, I looked around. The whole world was my enemy, to be conquered by force and stratagem. Any man may be rich, I said, who has a clear head and no conscience; who is willing to abandon all sentiment, forego all trivial pleasures, and give himself absolutely to the service of the world’s idol. I gave myself to the idol; and wealth came to me in increasing stores year by year, month by month, day by day.
‘At first, the sense of my victory sufficed; but soon there came the consciousness that this was not happiness; it was the successful working of a machine. I craved for something more, but did not know what it was. My wife’s affection, I knew, belonged to another: I had married her with that knowledge. I tried to win the friendship of my children; but the girls had learned to regard me with a kind of fear, Coutts with indifference, and Philip was the only one who could speak to me with frankness. His generous nature comforted me, but did not fill up the void in my life.
‘I was still seeking the Something which was necessary to me, and at length I found it in You.... Yes, you taught me what love was—I loved you with all the fervour of youth. My years, my experience of the world intensified the love which I had never known before. I was prepared to sacrifice all my possessions, all my hopes, for you.
‘Do not start away and cast the paper from you; I have made the sacrifice.
‘At the same moment in which the treasure that would have made life beautiful was revealed to me, there was also revealed the impossibility of its ever becoming mine. I was like a seaman who is shipwrecked and sinks within sight of land. I will not try to tell you through what pain I passed to the recognition of the duty Love imposed—to help forward your happiness in any direction in which you might think it lay. I will not try to tell you with what agitation I learned for the first time, what must have become known to me long before, had it not been for the morbid isolation in which my days were passed, that you and Philip were betrothed.
‘My first desire then was to bring about your union as speedily as possible, believing that I should find my peace in having the privilege of calling you daughter. Meeting your uncle Crawshay in the market-place, I took him to a private apartment in the inn and endeavoured to explain my wishes. I must have spoken stupidly, for he misunderstood me, and fancied that the proposal was on my own account. His misconception startled and confused me, and he left me in great indignation.