“The inclosed packet contains a manuscript that was written at intervals during this time, and with a view to the chance of just such a crisis as has now come. I leave it for you to read. I do not ask you to pardon me, for I know there is no such thing as pardon for me in this world. I do not even ask you to judge charitably of me—charity is for the sinner, not for the hypocrite. I only ask you to read the story that you may understand the fiendish hold one human being had upon my body, soul and spirit—my very life here and hereafter; and, after having read it, I, who have no right to ask you anything, dare still to ask you this—to ask, to plead, to pray that you will be kind to one who is the guiltless victim of others’ guilt, and to save him, if you can. And now, farewell! And oh! my whole heart goes out in this cry. Oh, God! Oh, God! though I cannot be pardoned—yet, oh! hear my prayer, and save and bless my husband and my children!” That was all. Abel Force dropped his head upon his breast, and remained in deep thought for a few moments. Then, with a heavy sigh, he aroused himself, drew a match case from his pocket, lighted a match, set fire to the little note and held it down upon the stone window sill, with the point of his penknife, until it was consumed to ashes. Then he went to lock his door, to prevent intrusion; but he found that he had already taken that precaution. Finally, he returned to his chair, cut the cords of the packet, broke the seal, and read as follows: “THE STORY OF A WITHERED HEART “You have often heard how lonely, loveless and neglected was my childhood and youth. You are reminded of these facts now, not in excuse of what followed, but as the causes of the effects that destroyed my life. “You know that I was born at Enderby Castle, where the first years of my infancy passed. “When I was scarcely four years of age I lost my mother—too young to understand or to lament my loss. The pageantry of her funeral is one of the strongest impressions among the brain pictures of that time. “A few days after that event my father left Enderby, taking me with him. “We went to Weirdwaste, an estate he had acquired through his marriage with my mother, situated on the west coast of Ireland. It was, if possible, even more drear, lonely and desolate than Enderby Cliff itself. “This place, in which I was destined to pass my childhood, was built of gray stone, two stories high, around the four sides of a hollow quadrangle, at the inland end of a long, flat point of land stretching far out into the Atlantic Ocean, which at high tide swept over it, covering more than two-thirds of the ground; and the moan of the sea never ceased from the sorrowful shore. North, west and south around the point of land nothing but sky and water was to be seen. East—inland—was a wild waste, dotted here and there by the huts of the poorest peasantry on the island, and that means, also, the poorest people on the earth.