"Farewell, my dearest Hugh, for before this reaches you I shall be dead. Take care of Marian always, and be good to her. With my last strength, Hugh, I am tracing these words to lay upon you a solemn charge. Your father is dying slowly of a broken heart. Year after year I have watched him grow more and more unhappy, as the memory of this cruel dishonour seems to grow keener and bitterer. He is pining away for the love of his old home, his father, and the name which he was once so proud to bear. Oh, Hugh, let it be your task, however impossible it may seem, to bring the truth to light, and clear his name and your own. Hugh, this is my dying prayer to you. With my last strength I write these words, and I shall die at peace, because I know that you will bear them ever in your heart, and carry them on with you to the end. Farewell! My strength is going fast, and my eyes are becoming dim. But thank God that I have been able to finish this letter. Farewell, Hugh!--From your loving MOTHER." Word by word I read it steadfastly through to the end, and then, my heart throbbing with the fire of a great purpose, I threw open the window and looked out. Below me stretched the fair city of Devon, smiling and peaceful, basking in the early morning sunshine, and the air around was still ringing with the music of the cathedral chimes. Little it all matched with my mood, for my whole being was vibrating with an agony of hate, and with the fervour of a great resolution. With the letter clutched in my hands, I stretched them forth to the blue, cloudless sky, and swore an oath so fearful and blasphemous that the memory of it even now makes me shudder. But I kept it, and thank God, _without sin_. CHAPTER X THE FIRST MOVE My first plans were not easy to form. I was like a blind man groping for some object which has slipped from his fingers, and not knowing in which direction to search for it first. I had a great and solemn purpose before me, a purpose which was my first consideration in life, and which nothing but death would cause me to relinquish. But I did not know how to start upon it. I was in London when the idea occurred to me, save for which this story might never have been written. It was simple enough, and very vague. Nothing more or less than to try to procure employment near the Devereux estates, which I knew were somewhere in Yorkshire. My idea was no sooner conceived than I put it into operation. I went to the firm of agents to whom my late employers had given me a letter of introduction, and inquired whether they knew of any vacancy in Yorkshire, either in a land agent's office or on an estate. One of the clerks ran through a long list, and shook his head. "Nothing so far north," he declared, shutting up the book. "Two or three in Leicestershire, if that would do." I shook my head, and, thanking him, turned away disappointed. At the door he called me back as though a sudden thought had struck him.