henceforth change for life."

"I am ready to make my confession, Sir. I only ask you to believe
beforehand, that if I have sinned grievously against you, I have been
already heavily punished for the sin. I am afraid it is impossible that
your worst forebodings can have prepared you--"

"The words you spoke in your delirium--words which I heard, but will not
judge you by--justified the worst forebodings."

"My illness has spared me the hardest part of a hard trial, Sir, if it
has prepared you for what I have to confess; if you suspect--"

"I do not _suspect_--I feel but too _sure,_ that you, my second son,
from whom I had expected far better things, have imitated in secret--I
am afraid, outstripped--the worst vices of your elder brother."

"My brother!--my brother's faults mine! Ralph!"

"Yes, Ralph. It is my last hope that you will now imitate Ralph's
candour. Take example from that best part of him, as you have already
taken example from the worst."

My heart grew faint and cold as he spoke. Ralph's example! Ralph's
vices!--vices of the reckless hour, or the idle day!--vices whose stain,
in the world's eye, was not a stain for life!--convenient, reclaimable
vices, that men were mercifully unwilling to associate with grinning
infamy and irreparable disgrace! How far--how fearfully far, my father
was from the remotest suspicion of what had really happened! I tried to
answer his last words, but the apprehension of the life-long humiliation
and grief which my confession might inflict on him--absolutely
incapable, as he appeared to be, of foreboding even the least degrading
part of it--kept me speechless. When he resumed, after a momentary
silence, his tones were stern, his looks searching--pitilessly
searching, and bent full upon my face.

"A person has been calling, named Sherwin," he said, "and inquiring
about you every day. What intimate connection between you authorises
this perfect stranger to me to come to the house as frequently as he
does, and to make his inquiries with a familiarity of tone and manner
which has struck every one of the servants who have, on different
occasions, opened the door to him? Who is this Mr. Sherwin?"

"It is not with him, Sir, that I can well begin. I must go back--"

"You must go back farther, I am afraid, than you will be able to return.
You must go back to the time when you had nothing to conceal from me,
and when you could speak to me with the frankness and directness of a