The man had been sinned against and was also a great sinner. He had sinned against the young English girl, Clara, whom he had seduced from her home under the false pretence of marriage, and whose fidelity to him and trust in him had continued to her gentle death. Afterward to win for himself the means of keeping up his dissipated habits he had recourse to forgery, and had escaped in disguise, and narrowly, with his life. After that he went to Rome; by a run of luck in gambling he obtained the means of making a handsome appearance in society there, and by his cultivation, taste and fine manners, so impressed an Italian family of some distinction that he married one of the daughters. The marriage was an unhappy one. His wife eloped with his friend, and the old drama of a duel was acted over. Finally his resources were exhausted, and either reason or conscience suggested to him the claim which a wife and child had on his memory. At all events, he became an altered man, took holy orders, obtained permission to travel, and did travel in search of his long-forgotten wife and child. After a long search he found Claire. He sought her society. He became her confessor and her friend. He learned her pure heart, and her enthusiastic devotion to the memory of her parents. Then the iron entered into his soul. He felt the impossibility of presenting himself to such an innocent being as the realization of such an ideal as hers. He now dreaded any chance by which his relationship could become known to her, as much as he had heretofore eagerly sought her. All he could do for her he did, but he constantly watched an opportunity to secure to her an efficient friend, who could take her into the world, and withdrawing her from the dull and confined life she then had, put her into the way of forming connections for herself which would in some degree lead her to forget or cease to look for her father. The agony of being forced to deny himself every parental caress, lest he should be forced to explain his relationship, and consequently the reasons for his long and unpardonable estrangement, made him wish a thousand times he were dead indeed, and he said he longed every hour for the time to arrive when he should take the vow of eternal silence, for such only harmonized with the gloom of his soul.
It would be wearisome to go through all the details of such a life, of such talents abused, of such a mournful old age.
We talked the matter over freely and fully, and Herbert concluded with me that it was best to burn the package, that under no possible combination of circumstances could it fall into her hands. It should be his happiness he said to make her forget to look for her father.
How he found out how much she could bless him—and when she discovered that though he was full of faults, she loved him, faults and all, I cannot tell; but every body’s experience will furnish similar instances for themselves or others.
APPEARANCES.
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BY J. HUNT, JR.
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It is not by an outward show