eit; I heaped perjury
upon perjury; lying and deception had become my second nature. Yet I
loathed myself and I hated those books; they reproached me every time I
came into their presence. So I was miserable and helpless; how hard it
is to turn about when one once gets into the downward path! The shifts
I was put to, and the desperate devices which I was forced to
employ,--I shudder to recall them! Life became a constant, terrifying
lie.

Thank Heaven, it is over now, and my face is turned the right way. A
third little son was born to us. Alice was, oh! so very ill. When she
was convalescing she said to me one day: "Hiram, I have been thinking
it all over, and I've made up my mind that we must name the baby Trask
Flail Bisland, after our three good friends."

I did n't make any answer, went out into the hall, and communed awhile
with my own hideous, tormented self. How my soul revolted against the
prospect of giving to that innocent babe a name that would serve simply
to scourge me through the rest of my wicked life! No, I could not
consent to that. I would be a coward no longer!

I went back into Alice's room, and sat upon the bed beside her, and
took one of Alice's dear little white hands in mine, and told her
everything, told Alice the whole truth,--all about my wickedness and
perjuries and deceptions; told her what a selfish, cruel monster I had
been; dispelled all the sinful delusion about Flail, Trask, and
Bisland; threw myself, penitent and hopeless, upon my deceived,
outraged little wife's mercy. Was it a mean advantage to take of a
sick woman?

I fancied she would reproach me, for I knew that her heart was set upon
that new house she had talked of so often; I told her that the savings
she had supposed were in bank, were in reality represented only by and
in those stately folios and sumptuous quartos which the mythical Flail,
Trask, and Bisland had presumably donated. "But," I added, "I shall
sell them now, and with the money I shall build the home in which we
may be happy again,--a lovely home, sweetheart, with no library at all,
but all nursery if you wish it so!"

"No," said Alice, when I had ended my blubbering confession, "we shall
not part with the books; they have caused you more suffering than they
have me, and, moreover, their presence will have a beneficial effect
upon you. Furthermore, I myself have become attached to them,--you
know I thought they were given to you, and so I have l