Cord and Creese | Page 3

you
to find out some day for yourself. In poverty unspeakable, in anguish
that I pray you may never know, I turn to you after a silence of years,
and my first word is to implore your forgiveness. I know my noble boy
that you grant it, and it is enough for me to ask it. After asking this I
can die content on that score.
"Lying as I do now at the point of death, I find myself at last freed from
the follies and prejudices which have been my ruin. The clouds roll
away from my mind, and I perceive what a mad fool I have been for
years. Most of all I see the madness that instigated me to turn against
you, and to put against the loyal love of the best of sons my own
miserable pride and the accusation of a lying scoundrel. May God have
mercy upon me for this!
"I have not much strength, dear boy; I have to write at intervals, and by

stealth, so as not to be discovered, for I am closely watched. He must
never know that I have sent this to you. Frank and your mother are both
sick, and my only help is your sister, my sweet Edith, she watches me,
and enables me to write this in safety.
"I must tell you all without reserve before strength leaves me forever.
"That man Potts, whom you so justly hated, was and is the cause of all
my suffering and of yours. You used to wonder how such a man as that,
a low, vulgar knave, could gain such an influence over me and sway me
as he did. I will try to explain.
"Perhaps you remember something about the lamentable death of my
old friend Colonel Despard. The first that I ever heard of this man Potts
was in his connection with Despard, for whom he acted partly as valet,
and partly as business agent. Just before Despard left to go on his fatal
voyage he wrote to me about his affairs, and stated, in conclusion, that
this man Potts was going to England, that he was sorry to lose him, but
recommended him very earnestly to me.
"You recollect that Colonel Despard was murdered on this voyage
under very mysterious circumstances on shipboard. His Malay servant
Uracao was convicted and executed. Potts distinguished himself by his
zeal in avenging his master's death.
"About a year after this Potts himself came to England and visited me.
He was, as you know, a rough, vulgar man; but his connection with my
murdered friend, and the warm recommendations of that friend, made
me receive him with the greatest kindness. Besides, he had many things
to tell me about my poor friend, and brought the newspapers both from
Manilla and Calcutta which contained accounts of the trial.
"It was this man's desire to settle himself somewhere, and I gave him
letters to different people. He then went off, and I did not see him for
two years. At the end of that time he returned with glowing accounts of
a tin mine which he was working in Cornwall. He had bought it at a
low price, and the returns from working it had exceeded his most
sanguine expectations. He had just organized a company, and was

selling the stock. He came first to me to let me take what I wished. I
carelessly took five thousand pounds' worth.
[Illustration: "EDITH SHE WATCHES ME, AND ENABLES ME TO
WRITE THIS IN SAFETY."]
"On the following year the dividend was enormous, being nearly sixty
per cent. Potts explained to me the cause, declaring that it was the
richest mine in the kingdom, and assuring me that my £5000 was worth
ten times that sum. His glowing accounts of the mine interested me
greatly. Another year the dividend was higher, and he assured me that
he expected to pay cent. per cent.
"It was then that the demon of avarice took full possession of me.
Visions of millions came to me, and I determined to become the richest
man in the kingdom. After this I turned every thing I had into money to
invest in the mine. I raised enormous sums on my landed estate, and
put all that I was worth, and more too, into the speculation. I was
fascinated, not by this man, but by the wealth that he seemed to
represent. I believed in him to the utmost. In vain my friends warned
me. I turned from them, and quarreled with most of them. In my
madness I refused to listen to the entreaties of my poor wife, and turned
even against you. I can not bear to allude to those mournful days when
you denounced that villain to his face before