XXXIX

officials; and Bertram, if not sustained in his reputation, must suffer from the doubts which naturally have arisen in Mr. Stuyvesant’s breast. The story which this man could tell, must of course shake the faith of anyone in the reputation of him against whom it is directed, and the man intends to repeat his story, and that, too, in the very ears of him upon whose favor Bertram depends for his life’s happiness and the winning of the woman he adores. I adore you, Paula, but I cannot clasp you to my heart across another sin. If the detectives whom we shall call in tomorrow, cannot exonerate those connected with the bank from the theft lately committed there⁠—and the fact that you have been allowed to read this letter, prove they have not⁠—I must do what I can to relieve Bertram from his painful position, by taking upon myself the onus of that past transgression which of right belongs to my account; and this once done, let the result be for good or ill, any bond between you and me is cut loose forever. I have not learned to love at this late hour, to wrong the precious thing I cherish. Death as it is to me to say goodbye to the one last gleam of heavenly light that has shot across my darkened way, it must be done, dear heart, if only to hold myself worthy of the tender and generous love you have designed to bestow upon me. Bertram, who is all generosity, may guess but does not know, what I am about to do. Go down to him, dear; tell him that at this very moment, perhaps, I am clearing his name before the wretch who has so ruthlessly fastened his fang upon him; that his love and Cicely’s shall prosper, as he has been loyal, and she trusting, all these years of effort and probation; that I give him my blessing, and that if we do not meet again, I delegate to him the trust of which I so poorly acquitted myself. But before you go, stop a moment and