Reparation.

If hearts are weak, souls should at least be strong.

I will be brief, for my short date of breath

Is not so long as is a tedious tale.

ROMEO AND JULIET.

Let me hasten to the end.

When I told Mrs. Pollard that I would suppress that portion of the truth which connected her name with this fatal affair, I did not of course mean that I would resort to any falsehood or even prevarication. I merely relied upon the improbability of my being questioned close enough to necessitate my being obliged to reveal the astounding facts which made this matter a destructive one for the Pollards. And I was right in my calculations. Neither socially, nor at the formal inquiry before the coroner, was any question raised of relationship between the dead girl and the family in S——; and this fact, taken with the discreet explanations accorded by Dwight Pollard of his father’s, and afterwards of his own interest in her, as shown in the letter which he had sent to her address, is the reason why this affair passed without scandal to the parties concerned.

But not without results for deep down in the heart of one person an influence was at work, destined ere long to eventuate in the tragedy to which these lines are the clue. Remorse deep as my nature and immovable as my sin, has gotten hold upon me, and nothing short of death, and death in the very shape from which I fled in such a cowardly manner, will ever satisfy my soul or allay that burning sense of shame and regret which makes me fear the eye of man and quake at the thought of eternal justi............