“And now I am laid aside, a useless weapon; I am not even physically capable of writing, even if the world would hear me; and I am forced back upon myself, upon a feeble life, necessarily self-centered, to nurse and coddle myself as though I was a poor failing dotard, with one avenue alone—­and how precarious!—­through which I may perhaps speak my little message to the world—­the education of a child to carry on my torch.

“I have written to you my whole mind, not because I want you to reassure me—­no, that is impossible; but because I am weak and miserable.  I must unburden myself to some one—­must confess that I have indeed broken down.

“And, further, what is the Death, into whose antechamber I have already passed?  Is it indeed true that, as I have so passionately denied, I have fallen into the grasp of a power which is waging an equal war with truth and light and goodness?  Shall I be sacrificed to the struggle, without having made the world a whit better, or richer, or stronger, with the only memory of me a quiet life with few follies and fewer deeds of power, to be laid away in the dark?

“And yet I have a lingering hope that this is a leading too; that I shall somehow emerge.  My dear Chris, come and see me again as soon as you can.  You will be even more welcome if you bring my boy, Edward Bruce, as I understand we are to call him—­attamen ipse veni.

“I am your affectionate friend,
“Arthur Hamilton.

“Flora”—­his collie, of whom he was very fond—­“is sitting watching me with such liquid eyes that I must go and take her out.  We have not walked as far as the creek yet; the first effect of valetudinarian habits is, I find, to make one feel really ill.”

On the 4th of August, Tuesday, at 11.15, a card was brought to me, and immediately afterward a tall gentleman appeared, with a boy of about fourteen, whom I knew at once to be Edward Bruce.

The gentleman, after a few polite words of inquiry after Arthur, retired, the boy saying good-bye to him affectionately.  He left me his address for a few days, in case I should wish to see him.

Edward Bruce was a boy of extraordinary beauty—­there was no denying that.  Personal descriptions are always disappointing; but, not to be prolix, he had such eyes, with so much passion and fire in them, that they could only be the inheritance of many generations of love and hate and quick emotions; his eyelids drooped languidly, but when he opened his eyes and looked full at you!—­I felt relieved to think I should not have to conduct his education; I could not have denied him anything.  His hair was brown and curly, cut short, but of that fineness and glossy aspect that showed that till lately it had been allowed its own way.

The boy had beautiful lips and white regular teeth, with that exquisite complexion that is the result of perfect health and physical condition.  He did not speak English very well, but acquired it fast.  He always spoke slowly, and with a very pure articulation.  His voice was clear, high-pitched, and thrilling—­I have no other word for it.