“It was an unfortunate hour that saw me installed as our great Uncle Jason’s book-keeper and confidential clerk. He trusted me so entirely, and there were such large sums of money daily passing through my hands, that the temptation was a great one to a person of my expensive tastes and habits. I cannot tell just when I took the first five dollars, replacing it as soon as possible, and then finding the second sin so much easier than the first. It was not a sin, I said then, as did others of my companions who were in the habit of doing the same thing, and who led me on from bad to worse, while all the time my uncle believed me a pattern of honesty. If I had not heard that a part of Uncle Jason’s fortune rightfully belonged to us, I do not believe I should have fallen so low. As it was, I made myself think that what I took was mine, and after I learned to gamble it was ten times worse. There is a fascination about those dens of iniquity which you cannot understand, and it proved my ruin. I played every night, sometimes losing, sometimes winning, and gradually staking more and more, until at last I bet so heavily that forgery was the consequence. I don’t know what made me do it, for I knew I could not replace that 20,000 dollars, and when the deed was done there was no alternative but to run away. Assuming the name of John Maxwell, I went to England first, and then to California. Uncle Jason had so much faith in me that you know he believed me murdered, until the fraud was discovered, when it seems he behaved most generously, suppressing the facts, and after an interview with you, my brother, consented to keep the whole thing still, provided the money was in time refunded.” “Who told you this?” both Richard and his mother exclaimed, but Robert only replied: “I heard it, and resolved, if possible, to earn that money and pay it back myself. The voyage out sobered me into a better man, for, mother, your prayers, said over me when I was a child, rang continually in my ears, until I, too, ventured to whisper each day the words, ‘Lead us not into temptation,’ saying them at first more from habit than anything else, and afterwards because I learned to have faith in them, learned to believe there was something in that petition which did keep me from falling lower. I was not good as you term goodness, and had I died I should assuredly have been lost; but within a few short months there has been a change, so that what I once was doing for your sakes I now do, I trust, from higher, holier motives; and oh! I had so much need of forgiveness, for had I not wronged everybody, and you, my brother, most of all?”