I most heartily
sympathize with you----

"What can he mean?" he said, putting down the letter. "But what is
this?" he cried, as his eye caught one he had overlooked before. 'Tis
Arthur's hand!" With trembling hands he broke the seal (taking no note,
in his agitation, of the fact that it had not been through the post),
and read the almost unintelligible scrawl:

DEAR FATHER:--I have charged Louisa to bring this and give it into
your own hand. She will not believe that I am dying, and still
clings to the hope that I will recover. But it can not be;
I feel--I know--that I shall die. Oh, how I wish that I could see
you again once more and ask your forgiveness, but it may not be!
With my dying breath I beseech you to forgive your erring boy; it
was the first, it is the last deception I ever practiced toward
you. To you I ever confided my hopes and plans, and you always
strove to gratify every wish. I feel now how much I wronged your
generous nature, when I feared to tell you of my intended
marriage. The tune seems ever before me when you asked me, even
with tears, why I wished to leave you again, after I returned from
America, and I answered, evasively, that I wanted to see the
world. And when, in the fullness of your love, you replied "Then I
will go with you," I answered angrily, "In that case I do not care
to go," and pleaded for just one year. And you granted my request,
and sent me forth with blessings. Oh, why did I not tell you all?
I feel sure that you would have replied, "Bring your wife home,
Arthur, and I will love her as a daughter, only do not leave me."
Oh, father, forgive your boy! Thoughts of your loneliness would
intrude at all times and mar my happiness, until I determined to
return and bring my wife, trusting to your love, and was on my way
home when I was attacked with this dreadful fever. Oh, how I
repent that I did not mention my wife in my last letter to you! It
is but a few short months since I left you, but O how long those
lonely months must have been to you! Then let your sad hours be
cheered by Louisa, since the sight of your boy may never gladden
your heart in this world. Bestow upon her the same love and
kindness you have ever shown to me. Nothing can alleviate my pain
in leaving her, but the certainty I feel that you will love and
cherish her for my sake. Oh make not