"Dying, my child, I may at last speak out my soul’s wish as it is and has been from the first, concealing nothing nor adding a word. My heart is now too weak, too yearning, too inexpressibly sad, to longer harbor reserve or any mystery of life. Sickness and tears and years of tender longing, my child, for you, my next of kin, have melted it; and now, coming to the end of my days, I may, all too late, speak as I am, and was even in the old time when your father and mother were yet alive. Of my coldness, oh, believe me! it was never real, but only a cloak, a shadowy thing put on without thought. For it had no real substance, but hid my heart, and foolishly, to my life’s undoing. I have no one but you, my child, and dying I am alone and forsaken, for only the walls of my house answer back my call for love and sympathy. Surely, if I have sinned through pride and in hiding my heart from you and those who sleep in their graves, I have suffered and am punished beyond bearing. You could have loved me, and your sweet-faced mother ever sought to win from me some show of tenderness; but erring, I put off the day of yielding until it was too late. Now I am as one abandoned in the world, for when you come to die only those of your own blood can respond to your heart’s yearnings. Sweet child, if you can yet conjure up some shadow of kindness for your poor aunt, come to her in her sickness and loneliness, that she may press you to her heart and have you by her when she yields her life to God. For believe me, her persecution, as you thought, was but her love and striving for your welfare, but oh, how mistakenly conveyed, as all her acts have been from the beginning. Then forgive and pity her, sweet one, and hasten if you would let her see you before she dies." Tears ran down our faces long ere Constance had finished reading, for of its truthfulness we had no shadow of doubt. "Surely, she has been punished, if she has erred," Constance at last said, as she took up the letter again. "Yes; and how I have mistaken her all these years," I mourned, for I could not now doubt her love and affection. "You can’t be blamed, Gilbert, for she made no sign," Constance answered, as if to comfort me; "but how lonely her life must have been, and how greatly she has suffered." "Had I gone to her as I ought, her coldness would have quickly given place to show of love; and it is I, not she, who should ask forgiveness," I answered, remembering with shame the scant respect I had shown her. "You were not in fault, Gilbert, for she being older and wiser should have been first to open her arms. How could you know her heart?" Constance answered, excusing me, as she did in all things. "I wonder if all letters are so full of tears?" I exclaimed, taking the missive tenderly in my hands. "But see the date, and how long it has been in coming! She will have died, I know, ere I can reach her!" "You will go to her, then?" Constance answered.