“After the death of my little ones I went to Chicago, that metropolis of bustle and activity, hoping a change of scene and business would lift the pall of gloom that rested upon my spirits. There I became acquainted with my present wife. At the hotel where I boarded we were thrown into daily intercourse, and as I became impressed with the strong, quiet dignity and purity of her life, a warmer sentiment seemed to gradually thaw my heart, the more so as I perceived she manifested an evident partiality for me. “I found it easy, with the aid of those letters, to procure a divorce from Agnes, in Chicago, and last fall I married my second wife and came here, bringing with us the one child left me, whom you have often seen. I have lived a peaceful and quiet life, and striven so far as possible to banish from my memory and thoughts the scenes of the past—that beautiful and nearly tragical past, the happiest days of my life and the most miserable, until—Well, you were with me in my office when a certain letter was delivered to me but a short time ago, and you witnessed the effect upon me and wondered at my agitation. I promised to explain its cause. You will wonder no longer when I tell you that the letter was from Teasdale and contained a full confession of his villainy. In it he avows the perfect innocence of Agnes, and explains just how and why he secreted the letter in my secretary and wrote the others in her absence, thus wreaking a terrible vengeance on us both. “Admiring my wife, he hoped if he could in some way separate us he might get her into his power; and when she, with scorn, repelled his slightest advances toward her, and I with threats drove him from the house, he became unscrupulous as to his mode of revenge. He bribed one of the servants to place the letter where I found it, as soon as he learned of my wife’s absence from home, and then sent the other two letters, conceived with diabolical cunning that the result would be just what it has been. And I, blind fool that I was, worked right into his hands, and acted the damnable part of an Othello, entailing a life of misery and lifelong regret upon both myself and my innocent Agnes. “If I were free I would hasten to her, the bride of my youth, and on bended knee implore her forgiveness of the most grievous wrong ever committed by man upon the gentle being who gave her life into his hands, and whose only fault was having loved and trusted so stupid a fool as I.