This was all he had strength to write, and when the letter was finished, he relapsed into a thoughtful, half dreamy state, from which he did not rouse for a day or two. Then, with strength renewed, he called the captain to him, and bidding him sit down beside him, told him the whole story of his life, even to his love for Jessie Graham,—which he must not tell until his father were proved innocent. There was a smothered groan in the direction where Mr. Marshall sat, and inwardly the unfortunate man prayed: "How long, dear Lord, oh, how long must thy servant wait?" "Mr. Graham may release you from that promise," he said, "and then you surely would not hesitate." "Perhaps not," Walter answered, for in spite of what Mrs. Bartow had said, he, too, entertained a secret hope that Mr. Graham would in some way interfere for him. "What would be the result if your father should return to Deerwood?" Captain Murdock asked. "Would they proceed against him?" "Oh, no! oh, no;" said Walter. "It was so long ago, and everybody who knew him speaks well of him now. I have often wished he would come home, and when I was a little boy, I used to watch by the window till it grew dark, and then cry myself to sleep. Did I tell you his arm-chair stands in the kitchen corner now just where he left it that night he went away! It was a fancy of grandpa’s that no one should ever sit in it again, and no one has, but Jessie. She would make a playhouse of it, in spite of all we could say. I wish you could see Jessie and grandfather and all." The captain wished so, too, and in his dreams that night, he was back again by the old hearth stone, sitting in the chair kept for him so long, and listening to his father’s voice blessing his long-lost son. All this might be again, he said, when he awoke but his young wife, whose face he saw, just as it looked on her bridal day, would not be there to meet him, and the strong man wept again as he had not done in many years, over the blight which had fallen so heavily upon him. Rapidly the days and weeks went by, and then there came letters both from Mr. Graham and Mrs. Bellenger, telling how the wedding song had been changed into a wail of sorrow, and that the elegant William Bellenger was branded as a villain. Mr. Graham, too, spoke of Jessie, saying toward the close: