"I was delirious with grief and remorse. I went from the house, and passed the night on mother's grave. I can recall little after that time, till found myself on board a vessel bound for the United States. Stella's letter will tell you what happened in the interim. What comfort the knowledge of those weeks would have been to me all these years, you can scarcely imagine. Will died of the wound inflicted by my hand, but not until he had confessed that he had loaded the gun while left alone. He called for me continually but poor Stella was, as she expresses it, possessed of a devil, and would not send for me. She continually denounced me as a murderer, and Aunt Sarah had to explain again and again how it had happened. "I resolved then and there to leave the money father left me for her use. I was reckless, and did not desire to live. "As you will read in her letter, Stella says that she saw me at the funeral, and almost repented when she perceived how changed I was. I have not the slightest recollection of being there. "I landed in Charleston, S. C., and made my way to Philadelphia, where I found the means of living while I pursued my studies. I gave up military life, and thought I should be content if I could fit myself for an editor of a paper. I was in an editor's office in New York, when I was seized with fever and carried to the Home for the Sick. I came away with new aims, and only longed to benefit some poor afflicted ones as I had been benefited there. You know the rest. I studied three years at the seminary, working among the poor meanwhile, and had just begun to preach when I was requested to supply the pulpit for a pastor who had been my most faithful adviser. I was called to Grantbury, and accepted the call. How nearly I retracted my acceptance, weighed down with a sense of my unfitness for the work, how I besought God with strong crying and tears to appear for me and let me know His will, no on but He knows. "There are poor Stella's letters. I have blamed her, but not half so much as she blames herself." Marion covered her face with her handkerchief. The story was sad indeed. "Perhaps I have done wrong to tell you all this," he urged, rising and walking the room. "You are the only confident I ever had." "No, no, not wrong. I thank you. If deal Stella could only have lived to tell you herself how fully she forgave you, how earnestly she longed for your forgiveness!"