see only a dreary blank.
This is not your fault--you are in no way to blame. I remember the time
when I should have been too angry to own this--when I might have said or
done things which I should have bitterly repented afterwards. That time
is past. My temper has been softened, since I have befriended you in
your troubles. That good at least has come out of my foolish hopes,
and perhaps out of the true sympathy which I have felt for you. I
can honestly ask you to accept my heart's dearest wishes for your
happiness--and I can keep the rest to myself.

"Let me say a word now relating to the efforts that I have made to help
you, since that sad day when you left Lady Lydiard's house.

"I had hoped (for reasons which it is needless to mention here) to
interest Mr. Hardyman himself in aiding our inquiry. But your aunt's
wishes, as expressed in her letter to me, close my lips. I will only
beg you, at some convenient time, to let me mention the last discoveries
that we have made; leaving it to your discretion, when Mr. Hardyman
has become your husband, to ask him the questions which, under other
circumstances, I should have put to him myself.

"It is, of course, possible that the view I take of Mr. Hardyman's
capacity to help us may be a mistaken one. In this case, if you still
wish the investigation to be privately carried on, I entreat you to let
me continue to direct it, as the greatest favor you can confer on your
devoted old friend.

"You need be under no apprehension about the expense to which you are
likely to put me. I have unexpectedly inherited what is to me a handsome
fortune.

"The same post which brought your aunt's letter brought a line from a
lawyer asking me to see him on the subject of my late father's affairs.
I waited a day or two before I could summon heart enough to see him, or
to see anybody; and then I went to his office. You have heard that
my father's bank stopped payment, at a time of commercial panic. His
failure was mainly attributable to the treachery of a friend to whom
he had lent a large sum of money, and who paid him the yearly interest,
without acknowledging that every farthing of it had been lost in
unsuccessful speculations. The son of this man has prospered in
business, and he has honorably devoted a part of his wealth to the
payment of his father's creditors. Half the sum due to _my_ father has
thus passed into my hands as his next of kin; and the other half is to
follow in course o