A strong man would long since have acknowledged her before the
world and taken the consequences; but, alas! I am only myself, and the
atmosphere I live in does not encourage moral heroism. I should like to
be different, but it is God who hath made us, and not we ourselves!
Nevertheless, old friend, I will ask of you one favor. If in the future
this child of Julia's and of mine should grow to womanhood; if she
should prove to have her mother's gentleness and love of virtue; if, in
the new era which is opening up for her mother's race, to which,
unfortunately, she must belong, she should become, in time, an educated
woman; and if the time should ever come when, by virtue of her education
or the development of her people, it would be to her a source of shame
or unhappiness that she was an illegitimate child,--if you are still
alive, old friend, and have the means of knowing or divining this thing,
go to her and tell her, for me, that she is my lawful child, and ask
her to forgive her father's weakness.
When this letter comes to you, I shall have passed to--the Beyond; but I
am confident that you will accept this trust, for which I thank you now,
in advance, most heartily.
The letter was signed with her father's name, the same signature which
had been attached to the will.
Having firmly convinced herself of the illegality of the papers, and of
her own right to destroy them, Mrs. Carteret ought to have felt relieved
that she had thus removed all traces of her dead father's folly.
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