David Cable, white-faced and trembling, read aloud the letter from James Bansemer. It was to "My beloved son." The first appealing sentences were given to explanation and apology for the determined silence he had maintained for so many months. He spoke casually of his utter indifference to the success of certain friends who were working for his pardon. "If they secure my release," he wrote, "I shall find happiness if you clasp my hand but once before I leave America forever." Farther on he said: "I will not accept parole. It is a poor premium on virtue, and, as you know, my stock of that commodity has been miserably low." "I may be required to serve my full term," read David Cable. "In that case, we should not see one another for years, my son. You have much to forgive and I have much more to forget. We can best see our ways to the end if we seek them apart. The dark places won't seem so black.... My sole purpose in writing this letter to you, my son, is to give back to you as much happiness as I can possibly extract from this pile of misery. I am not pleading for anything; I am simply surrendering to the good impulses that are once more coming into their own, after all these years of subjection.... I am not apologising to the Cables. I am doing this for your sake and for the girl who has wronged no one and to whom I have acted with a baseness which amazes me as I reflect upon it inside these narrow walls. "You will recall that I would have permitted you to marry her--I mean, in the beginning. Perhaps it was spite which interposed later on. At least, be charitable enough to call it that. Clegg has been here to see me. He says you are bound to make Jane Cable your wife. I knew you would. For a long time I have held out, unreasonably, I admit, against having her as my daughter. I could not endure the thought of giving you up altogether. Don't you comprehend my thought? I cannot bring myself to look again into her eyes after what she saw in this accursed prison.... She was born in wedlock.... The story is not a long one. Elias Droom knows the names of her father and mother, but I am confident that he does not know all of the circumstances. For once, I was too shrewd for him. The story of my dealings in connection with Jane Cable is a shameful one, and I cannot hope for pardon, either from you or from her." Here he related, as concisely as possible, the incidents attending Mrs. Cable's first visit to his office and the subsequent adoption of the babe.