entertained hopes of her ultimate sanity, now that his son was married,
deemed it unnecessary to embitter his peace by a detail of the evils he
had occasioned her. But when, like her brother William, he despaired of
her recovery, he considered it only an act of justice towards her and
her family to lay before Charles the hideousness of his guilt together
with its woful consequences. This melancholy communication was received
by him the day after his physicians had given him over, for in fact the
prescription of his native air was only a polite method of telling him
that there was no hope. His conscience, which recent circumstances
had already awakened, was not prepared for intelligence so dreadful.
Remorse, or rather repentance seized him, and he wrote to beg that his
father would suffer a penitent son to come home to die.

This letter, the brief contents of which we have given, his father
submitted to Mr. Sinclair, whose reply was indeed characteristic of the
exalted Christian, who can forget his own injury in the distress of his
enemy.

"Let him come," said the old man; "our resentments have long since
passed away, and why should not yours? He has now a higher interest to
look to than any arising from either love or ambition. His immortal soul
is at stake, and if we can reconcile him to heaven, the great object of
existence will after all be secured. God forbid that our injuries should
stand in the way of his salvation. Allow me," he added, "to bring this
letter home, that I may read it to my family, with one exception of
course. Alas! it contains an instructive lesson."

This was at once acceded to by the other, and they separated.

When William heard the particulars of Osborne's melancholy position,
he of course gave up the hostility of his purpose, and laid before
his friend a history of the circumstances connected with his brief and
unhappy career.

"He is now a dying man," said William, "to whom this life, its idle
forms and unmeaning usages, are as nothing, or worse than nothing. A
higher tribunal than the guilty spirit of this world's honor will demand
satisfaction from him for his baseness towards unhappy Jane. To that
tribunal I leave him; but whether he live or die, I will never look upon
my insane sister, without thinking of him as a villain, and detesting
his very name and memory."

If these sentiments be considered ungenerous, let it be remembered
that they manifested less his resentment to Osborne