I did not send for you to attend her funeral, for fear it would seem like an insult, she had taken such a stand against you during her life.  But she changed very much in that respect, and a few hours before she died she talked of you, and said she withdrew all her opposition, and that, if I loved you still and you loved me she hoped we would marry and be happy.  I did not tell her of the telegram, and so she did not know that you were already married.  But, strangest of all, she advised me to go to America, and if I could find anything to do, which would not compromise me as a gentleman, to do it.  Think of that, Bessie.  My mother advising me to work, after all her training to the contrary.  But she knew there was no other way.  It is work or starve with me now.  A few weeks before mother’s death she lost nearly everything which she had in her own right, and which would have naturally come to me, so that most of her income died with her.  Neither Trevellian House, nor the one in the country, is ours any longer, and father must go into lodgings when the new heir takes possession.  This, at his age, is very hard, and I am sorry for him.  If we only had the house in Middlesex it would not be so bad, for he likes the country and would be happy there.  What he will do here alone in London I am sure I don’t know, for I am going out to India on a salary of three hundred pounds a year; small enough for a chap of my habits, but better than nothing.

“I’d like awfully to see you once more before I go, and if you come to London I hope you will let me call upon you.  Don’t think I am breaking my heart because you belong to Grey.  I am not that kind, and it would do no good.  But I loved you as I can never love any one again, and there is always a thought of you in my mind, and I see your face as it looked at me that day in Liverpool, when I acted the part of a cowardly knave.

“I would kick myself for that if I could.  You were too good for me, Bessie, and I should have been a drag upon your life always.  But Heaven knows how much I miss you, and how at times, when the thought comes over me that you are lost to me forever, and that another man is enjoying the sweetness I once thought would be mine, I half wish I were dead and out of the way of everything.  Then I put that feeling aside as unworthy of me, and say to myself that I am glad you are happy, and that Grey is the noblest and best fellow in the world, and the one of all others who ought to have you for his wife.  I shall never marry; that is settled.  First, there is no woman in the world I can ever look at after loving you; and, second, I am too poor, and always shall be.

“And now I suppose you are thinking of Blanche, and wondering where she is.  She and mother had a jolly row, of which I fancy I was the cause.  Blanche told mother that all either she or I cared for was to get her ten thousand a year, and by Jove, I believe she was right, but