“Heaven bless you, Roger. Heaven give you every possible good which you may crave, and if in the course of your life there is one thing more than another which you desire, I pray Heaven to give it to you. I wish Schofield was here now. There is a dreadful feeling in my head, a cold, prickling sensation in my arms, and I must stop, while I have power to sign myself, “Yours lovingly and affectionately, “WILLIAM H. IRVING.” This was the letter, and the old man must have been battling with death as he wrote it, and with the tracing of Roger’s name the pen must have dropped from his nerveless fingers, and his spirit taken its flight to the world where poor, wronged Jessie had gone before him. The fact that she was innocent did not prevent her child from receiving the punishment of her seeming guilt, and at first every word of his father’s letter had been like so many stabs, making his pain harder than ever to bear. Magdalen comprehended it in full, and pitied him now more than she had before. “Oh, I am so sorry for you, Mr. Irving; sorrier than I was about the will,” she said, moving a little nearer to him. He looked quickly at her, and guessing of what he was thinking, she rejoined: “Don’t imagine for a moment that I distrust your mother. I know she was innocent and I hate the woman who breathed the vile slander against her.” “Hush, Magda, that woman is Frank’s mother,” Roger said, gently, and Magdalen replied: “I know she is, and your sister-in-law. I did not think of the relationship when I spoke, or suppose you would care.” She either did not or _would_ not understand him, and she went on to speak of Jessie and the man who had been her ruin. “Grey,” she repeated, “Arthur Grey! It surely cannot be Alice’s father?” Roger did not know. He had never thought of that. “I never saw him,” he said, “and never wish to see him or his. I could not treat him civilly. There is more about him here in mother’s letter. She loved him with a woman’s strange infatuation, and her love gives a soft coloring to what she has written. I have never shown it to a human being, but I want you to read it, Magda, or rather let me read it to you.” He was not angry with her, Magdalen knew, and she felt as if a great burden had been lifted from her as she listened to the letter written thirty years before. CHAPTER XXVII. JESSIE’S LETTER. It was dated on board the “Sea Gull” and began as follows: