At this time I had written to you my half-disapproval of the step you had taken in disguising yourself as a maid-of-all-work, and obtaining a situation next to that in Great Porter Square in which the murder had been committed--Great God! I cannot write it with calmness--the murder of my father. But after I had read the Romance in Real Life in the _Evening Moon_ and had somewhat calmed myself, I seemed to see in your action a kind of Providence. Before these insanely-wicked inventions of my father's widow were made public, before it was known that the man who was murdered in Great Porter Square was my father, it was comparatively unimportant that I should be cleared of a charge of which I was innocent; it was then, so to speak, a side issue; now it is a vital issue. And the murderer must be discovered. I say it solemnly--_must_ be discovered! He will be. Not by the Government, nor by the police, nor by any judicial agency, but by one whose honour, whose future, whose faith and love, are dragged into this dread crisis. And I see that it will be so--I see that you have been guided by a higher than a human impulse in your love-directed and seemingly mad inspiration to transform and degrade yourself, for the purpose of clearing me from a wicked and cruel accusation. At one time I doubted whether truth and justice were more than words; I doubt no longer; reflecting over certain incidents and accidents--accidents as I believed them to be--I see that something more than chance directed them, and that of our own destinies we ourselves are not the sole arbiters. In the extraordinary narration presented to the readers of the _Evening Moon_ I read that I am dead. Well, be it so. How the falsehood was invented, and led up to, and strengthened by newspaper evidence, scarcely interests me in the light of the more momentous issue which affects my future and yours. Involved in it, undoubtedly, were wonderful inventive powers, much painstaking, and immense industry--the result of which was a newspaper paragraph of a few lines, every word of which is false. That the woman who _was_ my father's wife, that the man who _is_ her lover, believe that I am dead, appears to be beyond doubt. Let them continue in their belief until their guilt is brought home to them. To all intents and purposes, to all useful ends at present in the service of truth and justice, it will be best that it should be believed that I _am_ dead. So let it be, then, until the proper time comes. It will come, I believe and hope. To one end I am pledged. I will avenge my father's murder, if it is in my power. I will bring his murderer to justice, if it is in my power. Help me if you can, and if after you peruse this strange narrative, every word of which is as faithful and true as though an angel, instead of an erring mortal, wrote it, you can still believe in me, still have faith in me, I shall bless you all my life, as I shall love you all my life, whether you remain faithful to me or not.