Contributed by FRANKLIN BLAKE

This change made it necessary for me to send one of my servants to

obtain my letters and remittances from the English consul in a certain

city, which was no longer included as one of my resting-places in my new

travelling scheme. The man was to join me again at an appointed place

and time. An accident, for which he was not responsible, delayed him on

his errand. For a week I and my people waited, encamped on the

borders of a desert. At the end of that time the missing man made his

appearance, with the money and the letters, at the entrance of my tent.

"I am afraid I bring you bad news, sir," he said, and pointed to one of

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the letters, which had a mourning border round it, and the address on

which was in the handwriting of Mr. Bruff.

I know nothing, in a case of this kind, so unendurable as suspense. The

letter with the mourning border was the letter that I opened first.

It informed me that my father was dead, and that I was heir to his great

fortune. The wealth which had thus fallen into my hands brought its

responsibilities with it, and Mr. Bruff entreated me to lose no time in

returning to England.

By daybreak the next morning, I was on my way back to my own country.

The picture presented of me, by my old friend Betteredge, at the time of

my departure from England, is (as I think) a little overdrawn. He has,

in his own quaint way, interpreted seriously one of his young mistress's

many satirical references to my foreign education; and has persuaded

himself that he actually saw those French, German, and Italian sides to

my character, which my lively cousin only professed to discover in jest,

and which never had any real existence, except in our good Betteredge's

own brain. But, barring this drawback, I am bound to own that he has

stated no more than the truth in representing me as wounded to the heart

by Rachel's treatment, and as leaving England in the first keenness of

suffering caused by the bitterest disappointment of my life.

I went abroad, resolved--if change and absence could help me--to forget

her. It is, I am persuaded, no true view of human nature which denies

that change and absence DO help a man under these circumstances; they

force his attention away from the exclusive contemplation of his own

sorrow. I never forgot her; but the pang of remembrance lost its worst

bitterness, little by little, as time, distance, and novelty interposed

themselves more and more effectually between Rachel and me.




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