"My Dear Helen,--I am devoting the last evening which I shall pass in England for an indefinite period, to writing to you a letter, which I shall take the precaution of sending so that its existence may be known to none but you, at the present time. A certain portion of its contents must necessarily be communicated to others; but you will use your discretion, upon which in this, and all other things, I rely with absolute confidence. "You must not let this preamble alarm you; there is nothing to occasion you any trouble or sorrow in what I am about to say to you. It will be a long story, and, I daresay, a clumsily--told one, for I am eminently unready with my pen; but it will interest you, Helen, for my sake and for your own. When I tell you that this story is not a new one,-that it does not include anything that has occurred after I left Knockholt, though I am indirectly impelled to write it to you by circumstances which have happened since then,--you will wonder why I did not tell it to you in person, during the period when our companionship was so close and easy,--so delightful to me, and I am quite sure I may add, so pleasant to you. I could not tell you then, because I was not sufficiently sure of myself. I had an experiment to try--an experience to undergo--before I could be certain, even in the limited sense of human security, of my own future; and until these were over and done with, all was vague for me. They are over and done with now: and I am going to tell you all about yourself, and a good deal about myself. "You know that among the sorrows of my life there is one which must be life-long. It is the remembrance of my conduct to my father, and of the long tacit estrangement which preceded our last meeting, and which, but for a providential interposition, might never have been even so far atoned for and mitigated as it was before his death. It would be difficult to account for this estrangement; it is impossible to excuse it; there never was any reproach on either side,--indeed there could not have been on mine, for the fault was all my own,--and there never was any explanation. My father doubtless believed, as he was justified in believing, that any wish of his would have little weight with me;--he seldom expressed one; and I am convinced that one thing on which he had set his heart very strongly, one paramount desire, he cautiously abstained from expressing, that he might, by keeping me ignorant of it during his lifetime, give it the additional chance of realization which it might derive from the sanctity of a posthumous appeal to the feelings of an undutiful and careless son, when those feelings should be intensified by unavailing regret. I did learn, dear Helen, after the barrier of eternal silence had been placed between my father and me, that he had cherished one paramount desire, and that he had resorted to such an expedient in order to induce me to respect and to fulfil it.