Even though we have disagreed as to what occupation is best for you to follow, and also as to the degree of reserve that is desirable as to what our father did, you must surely know that there is nothing I desire more than your highest welfare.

After looking at this sentence for a little while he struck his pen through the word “highest,” and then, offended with the appearance of the obliteration, he copied this much of the letter on a fresh sheet and again stopped.

When he continued, it was on the old sheet.  He made a rough copy of the letter—­writing, crossing out, and rewriting.  It seemed that the task to which he had set himself was almost harder than could appear possible, for, as he became more absorbed in it, there was evidence of discomfort in his attitude, and although the room was not warm, the moisture on his forehead became visible in the strong light of the lamp above him.  At length, after preliminary pauses had been followed by a lengthened period of vigorous writing, the letter was copied, and the writer sealed it with an air of obvious relief.

That done, he wrote another letter, the composition of which, although it engaged his care, was apparently so much pleasanter, that perhaps the doing of it was chosen on the same principle as one hears a farce after a tragedy, in order to sleep the more easily.

This second letter was to a lady.  When it was written, Trenholme pulled an album from a private drawer, and looked long and with interested attention at the face of the lady to whom he had written.  It was the face of a young, handsome girl, who bore herself proudly.  The fashion of the dress would have suggested to a calculating mind that the portrait had been taken some years before; but what man who imagines himself a lover, in regarding the face of the absent dear one in the well-known picture, adds in thought the marks of time?  If he had been impartial he would have asked the portrait if the face from which it was taken had grown more proud and cold as the years went by, or more sad and gentle—­for, surely, in this work-a-day world of ours, fate would not be likely to have gifts in store that would wholly satisfy those eager, ambitious eyes; but, being a man no wiser than many other men, he looked at the rather faded phonograph with considerable pleasure, and asked no questions.

It grew late as he contemplated the lady’s picture, and, moreover, he was not one, under any excuse, to spend much time in idleness.  He put away his album, and then, having personally locked up his house and said good-night to his housekeeper, he went upstairs.

Yet, in spite of all that Trenholme’s pleasure in the letter and the possession of the photograph might betoken, the missive, addressed to a lady named Miss Rexford, was not a love-letter.  It ran thus:—­