On two occasions you have expressed to me your wish to know what it was that induced me to take an interest in you when you were left an orphan, friendless, as you might have supposed. As the answer to your inquiry would have disclosed one of the secrets of my life, I refused to answer. But tonight, sitting, as I am sitting, alone in this desolate house, I am impelled to write an answer in my own way--impelled by the resurrection of certain memories which have arisen about me during the last hour, and which cling to me now with terrible tenacity. For the only time in my life that I can remember I will indulge myself by a free outpouring of what is in my mind, setting no restraint upon myself, as has hitherto invariably been my rule. I do this the more readily, as these words will certainly not be read by you until I am dead, and may never be read by you at all, for the whim may seize me to destroy them. To this extent I may therefore think that I am speaking to myself only--making confession to myself only. I strip myself of all reserve; the mere expression of this resolution gives me relief. I am not writing in my study; it was my first intention to do so, but the room was close and warm, and when the door was shut a stifling feeling came upon me, as if other forms besides my own were there, although I was the only living presence in it. Directly the fancy seized me, it grew to such monstrous proportions that, with a vague fear, I brought my papers away, and felt when I left the room as if I had escaped from a prison. I am writing now in the large drawing-room, by the window which looks out upon the garden and the river, where you and I have sometimes sat and conversed. The night is dark; the river and the banks beyond are dark; the garden is filled with shadows. The only light to be seen is where I am sitting writing by the light of a reading-lamp. The other portions of the room, and the garden, and the river, and the river's banks are wrapped in gloom. I open the window; I can breathe more freely now. Certain words you spoke to me, during our last interview, have recurred to me many times, against my wish, for I have endeavoured vainly to forget them. According to your thinking, you said, money, was only sweet when it was well-earned and well-spent. Well-earned? I have worked hard for the money which I have gained. I have toiled and laboured and schemed for it, and it is mine. Has it not been well earned? I ask this question of myself, not of you; for I believe your answer, if you could give it to me, would not please me. Well spent? I do not know--I never considered. I have gone on accumulating. 'Money makes money,' I used to hear over and over again. Money _has_ made money for me. Well, it is mine. The thought intrudes itself, For how long? This thought hurts me; I am an old man. For how many years longer will my money be mine? But I go on accumulating and adding; it is the purpose of my life.