I sunk, overcome in a chair. When I could sufficiently command myself, I wrote with my pencil on the cover of the Prince’s letter the following incoherent lines: “You owe _me_ nothing: to you I stand indebted for life itself, and all that could _once_ render life desirable. With existence only will the recollection of your kindness be lost; yet though generously it was unworthily bestowed; for it was lavished on an _Impostor_. I am not what I seem: To become an inmate in your family, to awaken an interest in your estimation, I forfeited the dignity of truth, and stooped for the first time to the meanness of deception. Your money, therefore, I return, but your ring--that ring so often worn by you--worlds would not tempt me to part with. “I have a father, sir; this father once so dear, so precious to my heart! but since I have been your guest, _he_, the whole world was forgotten. The first tie of nature was dissolved; and from your hands I seemed to have received a new existence. Best and most generous of men, be this recollection present to your heart: Should some incident as yet unforeseen discover to you who and what I am, remember this--and then forgive him, who, with the profoundest sense of your goodness, bids you a last farewell.” When I had finished these lines written with an emotion that almost rendered them illegible, I rung the bell and inquired (from the servant who answered) for the priest: he said he was shut up in the Prince’s room. “Alone, with the Prince?” said I. “No,” he returned, “for he had seen the lady Glorvina enter at the same time with Father John.” I did not wish to trust the servant with this open billet, I did not wish the Prince to get it till I was gone: in a word, though I was resolved to leave the castle that evening, yet I did not wish to go, till, for the last time, I had seen Glorvina. I therefore wrote the following lines in French to the priest. “Suffer me to see you; in a few minutes I shall leave Inismore forever.” As I was putting the billet into the man s hand, the stable-boy passed the window; I threw up the sash and ordered him to lead round my horse. All this was done with the agitation of mind which a criminal feels who hurries on his execution, to terminate the horrors of suspense.