In the small box which my friends will give to my darling child are three letters, numbered first, second, third. On the first letter is written, 'To be opened first, on your eighteenth birthday, before the other letters are touched. This is the sacred wish of your dead mother.' I copy this letter in this place, so that you may clearly understand what I have done: 'My darling Child,--I wish you to regard these written words as though they are spoken to you with my dying breath, and to obey them. If Mr. Bryan Carey has made your life happy, and if you are in the enjoyment of a happy home, destroy the second letter by fire, and hand him the third. If it is otherwise with you, and your life with him has been in any way unhappy, destroy the third letter by fire, as you would have done the second. Then seek some quiet place and read the second letter, and when you have read it, send it to Mr. Carey, and act as you think best for your welfare and happiness. That God will for ever bless and protect my darling is the prayer of your mother, 'Frances.' The third letter contains a short account of my life since you left me, and the statement that Jessie is your daughter. It leaves it to your judgment to make the relationship known to her, or to let it remain a secret. The second letter you are now reading. If it fall into your hands, Jessie will have read it first, and will know how basely you behaved to me. She will know that your conduct towards me was such that a woman never can forgive, and she will understand that a man had better kill his wife than inflict upon her such shame and misery and humiliation as you inflicted upon me, a guiltless woman, as God is my Judge. She will know that you deserted me for another woman, and left me, a simple inexperienced girl, to battle alone with the pitiless world. Ah, how pitiless it is, how uncharitable, how cruel! How many nights have I passed shedding what might have been tears of blood, for they were wrung from a bruised and bleeding heart! She, who has lived with me many happy years in her childhood's life, will, when she reads this, be able to look back with the eyes of a woman upon the life I led while we were together, and she will know whether it was without stain and without reproach. She will have had experience both of you and myself, and of both our natures and minds, and she will have sense and intelligence enough to judge fairly between us. I repeat here, with all the strength of my soul, what I have declared before--that when you accused me of loving my cousin Ralph and of being false to you, you lied most foully. I believe that I decided rightly when I decided to write these things. As you have acted towards your daughter, so shall be your reward. Whether it be for good or ill, you have earned it. Your unhappy wife, Frances.