University of Virginia Library

“My Dear Boy, — For many days I have been haunted
with a presentiment that I have not much longer to live. My
heart is badly diseased, and I may drop away any minute, and
as death begins to stare me in the face, my thoughts turn toward
you, the boy whom I have been so proud of and loved so much.
You don't remember your mother, Roger, and you don't know
how I loved her, she was so beautiful and artless, and seemed
so innocent, with her blue eyes and golden hair. Her home
was among the New Hampshire hills, a quarter of a mile or so
from the little rural town of Schodick, whose delightful scenery
and pure mountain air years ago attracted visitors there during
the summer months. Her father was poor and old and infirm,
and his farm was mortgaged for more than it was worth, and
the mortgage was about to be foreclosed, when, by chance, I
became an inmate for a few weeks of the farmhouse. I was
stopping in Schodick, the hotel was full, and I boarded with
Jessie's father. He had taken boarders before, — one a young
man, Arthur Grey, a fast, fashionable, fascinating man, who
made love to Jessie, a mere child of sixteen. Her letter,
which I inclose, will tell you the particulars of her acquaintance
with him, so it is not needful that I go over with them.
I knew nothing of Arthur Grey at the time I was at the farm-house,
except that I sometimes heard him mentioned as a
reckless, dashing young man. I was there during the months
of August and September. I had an attack of heart disease,

and Jessie nursed me through it, her soft hands and gentle
ways and deep blue eyes weaving around me a spell I could
not break. She was poor, but a lady every whit, and I loved
her better than I had ever loved a human being before, and I
wanted her for my wife. As I have said, her father was old
and poor, and the farm was mortgaged to a remorseless creditor.
They would be homeless when it was sold, and so I
bought Jessie, and her father kept his home. I know now
that it was a great mistake; know why Jessie fainted when the
plan was first proposed to her, but I did not suspect it then.
Her father said she was in the habit of fainting, and tried to
make light of it. He was anxious for the match, and shut his
eyes to his daughter's aversion to it.

“I brought her to Millbank in December, and within the
year you were born. I heard nothing of Arthur Grey. I only
knew that Jessie was not happy; satins and pearls and diamonds
could not drive that sad, hungry look from her eyes,
and I took her for a change to Saratoga, and there she met the
villain again, and as the result she left Millbank to go with him
to Europe. In a few days she was drowned, and her letter
written on the `Sea Gull' was sent to me by that accursed man
who, when she tried to escape him, followed her to the ship
bound for Charleston. I believe that part, and a doubt of
your legitimacy never entered my heart until Walter's wife put
it there. I had made my will, and given nearly all to you,
when Helen, who was here a few months ago, began one day
to talk of Jessie, very kindly, as I remember, and seemed trying
to find excuses for what she called her sin, and then said
she was so glad that I had always been kind to the poor innocent
boy who was not to blame for his mother's error. I
came gradually to understand her, though she said but little
which could be repeated, but I knew that she doubted your
legitimacy, and she gave me reason to doubt it too, by hinting
that Arthur Grey had been seen in Belvidere more than once
after Jessie's marriage. Her husband, Walter, was her informant;
but she had promised secrecy, as he wished to spare me,

and so she could not be explicit. But I had heard enough to
drive me mad with jealousy and rage, and I made another will,
and gave you little more than the Morton farm, which, when
Jessie's father died, as he did the day when you were born, I
bought to please your mother. I was wild with anger when I
made that will, and my love for you has ever since kept tugging
at my heart, and has prevented me from destroying the
first will, as I twice made up my mind to do. To-day I have
read your mother's letter again, and I have forgiven Jessie at
last, though Helen's insinuations still rankle in my mind. But
I have repented of leaving you so little, and have sent for
young Schofield to change my last will, and make you equal
with Frank.

“Perhaps I may never see you again, for something about
my heart warns me that my days are numbered, and what I do
for you must be done quickly. Heaven forgive me if I wronged
your mother, and forgive me doubly, trebly, if in wronging her
I have dealt cruelly, unnaturally by you, my darling, my pride,
my boy, whom I love so much in spite of everything; for I do,
Roger, I certainly do, and I feel even now that if you were
here beside me, the sight of your dear face would tempt me to
burn the later will and reacknowledge the first.

“Heaven bless you, Roger. Heaven give you every possible
good which you may crave, and if in the course of your
life there is one thing more than another which you desire, I
pray Heaven to give it to you. I wish Schofield was here
now. There is a dreadful feeling in my head, a cold, prickling
sensation in my arms, and I must stop, while I have power to
sign myself,