“Robert Mannion!” I could not take my eyes from that name:  I still held before me the crowded, closely-written lines of his writing, and delayed to read them.  Something of the horror which the presence of the man himself would have inspired in me, was produced by the mere sight of his letter, and that letter addressed to me. The vengeance which my own hands had wreaked on him, he was, of all men the surest to repay.  Perhaps, in these lines, the dark future through which his way and mine might lie, would be already shadowed forth.  Margaret too!  Could he write so much, and not write of her? not disclose the mystery in which the motives of her crime were still hidden?  I turned back again to the first page, and resolved to read the letter.  It began abruptly, in the following terms:—­

“St. Helen’s Hospital.

“You may look at the signature when you receive this, and may be tempted to tear up my letter, and throw it from you unread.  I warn you to read what I have written, and to estimate, if you can, its importance to yourself.  Destroy these pages afterwards if you like—­they will have served their purpose.

“Do you know where I am, and what I suffer?  I am one of the patients of this hospital, hideously mutilated for life by your hand.  If I could have known certainly the day of my dismissal, I should have waited to tell you with my own lips what I now write—­but I am ignorant of this.  At the very point of recovery I have suffered a relapse.

“You will silence any uneasy upbraidings of conscience, should you feel them, by saying that I have deserved death at your hands.  I will tell you, in answer, what you deserve and shall receive at mine.

“But I will first assume that it was knowledge of your wife’s guilt which prompted your attack on me.  I am well aware that she has declared herself innocent, and that her father supports her declaration.  By the time you receive this letter (my injuries oblige me to allow myself a whole fortnight to write it in), I shall have taken measures which render further concealment unnecessary.  Therefore, if my confession avail you aught, you have it here:—­She is guilty:  willingly guilty, remember, whatever she may say to the contrary.  You may believe this, and believe all I write hereafter.  Deception between us two is at an end.

“I have told you Margaret Sherwin is guilty.  Why was she guilty?  What was the secret of my influence over her?

“To make you comprehend what I have now to communicate, it is necessary for me to speak of myself; and of my early life.  To-morrow, I will undertake this disclosure—­to-day, I can neither hold the pen, nor see the paper any longer.  If you could look at my face, where I am now laid, you would know why!”