be disposed to accept your preservation as a token from Heaven
that I may, after all, have been mistaken, and that your mother could,
had I given her the opportunity, have explained those circumstances
which, unexplained, completely shattered her own happiness and mine."

The next letter, the fifth, was dated from Rome, in which city my father
informed me that he had then been staying for about three weeks; but
that he was about to leave it again, for what destination he could not
then say, as he had derived no benefit whatever from the change--was
rather worse, in fact--since the city was so full of associations
connected with my mother that his trouble was then harder than ever to
bear. He added that he was still strongly impressed with the idea of my
being alive, and that this idea, with the excuse it afforded him for
continuing to write to me, gave him some small comfort. He said he had
been exceedingly gratified at the very favourable report which had
reached him of my conduct at Jean Rabel, and he most earnestly besought
me, if indeed I were still alive, to comport myself in such a manner
that my glorious deeds might in some measure, if not wholly, atone for
the suffering my mother had caused him. The remaining letters were
dated from Naples. They all dwelt upon the same theme; but the last
closed with the request that, if it ever reached me, I would at once
write in reply, addressing my letter to his lawyer in London, who would
be kept advised of his whereabouts and would forward it on to him.
There was also an assurance that he had no desire to visit my mother's
heartless deception of him upon me, since, whatever were _her_ faults,
_I_ was his son, and he had no intention of disowning the relationship;
so that, if ever in need of money, I was without hesitation to draw upon
him for any reasonable amount. "In want of money, indeed!" Luckily, I
was not; but, as I crushed the letters back into my pocket, I solemnly
vowed that, rather than touch a penny of that man's money, at least
whilst his state of mind remained what it then was, I would perish of
starvation in a ditch. Then bewildered, stunned, and utterly crushed in
spirit, I hastily excused myself to Courtenay upon the plea of having
received distressing news from England, and, obeying the same impulse
which impels a wounded animal to rush away and hide itself and its
suffering in the deepest solitudes, I turned my back upon Kingston, with
its busy bust