open court. The law, if it
found me guilty, could at the worst but banish me from my country and my
friends. I will go of my own accord. God is my witness that I honestly
believed I could save the child from deformity and suffering. I have
risked all and lost all. My heart and spirit are broken. I am fit for
nothing but to go and hide myself, and my shame and misery, from all
eyes that have ever looked on me. I shall never come back, never expect
your pity or forgiveness. If you think less harshly of me when I am
gone, keep secret what has happened; let no other lips say of me
what yours and your wife's have said. I shall think that forbearance
atonement enough--atonement greater than I have deserved. Forget me in
this world. May we meet in another, where the secrets of all hearts are
opened, and where the child who is gone before may make peace between
us!' He said those words and went out. Your father never saw him or
heard from him again."

I knew the reason now why my father had never confided the truth to
anyone, his own family included. My mother had evidently confessed
all to her sister under the seal of secrecy, and there the dreadful
disclosure had been arrested.

"Your uncle told me," the priest continued, "that before he left England
he took leave of you by stealth, in a place you were staying at by the
sea-side. Tie had not the heart to quit his country and his friends
forever without kissing you for the last time. He followed you in the
dark, and caught you up in his arms, and left you again before you had a
chance of discovering him. The next day he quitted England."

"For this place?" I asked.

"Yes. He had spent a week here once with a student friend at the time
when he was a pupil in the Hotel Dieu, and to this place he returned to
hide, to suffer, and to die. We all saw that he was a man crushed and
broken by some great sorrow, and we respected him and his affliction. He
lived alone, and only came out of doors toward evening, when he used to
sit on the brow of the hill yonder, with his head on his hand, looking
toward England. That place seemed a favorite with him, and he is buried
close by it. He revealed the story of his past life to no living soul
here but me, and to me he only spoke when his last hour was approaching.
What he had suffered during his long exile no man can presume to say.
I, who saw more of him than anyone, never heard a word of complaint fall
from his lips. He had the courage of