FAREWELL
The night was far spent. For hours Peter had sat by his table with
writing materials before him, and at length his letter was written,
ended.
"It is the last time I shall write to you, but I ask you to condone my
conduct--at least, sufficiently to read what I have written. I know
I have no excuse to make. To say that my deception arose from the
knowledge that if you once knew Peter the Piper and Robin Adair as one
and the same I should lose your letters is of course none. I deceived
you deliberately, and broke the compact that our identities should
remain unknown to each other. Though I did not first break it, nor was
it broken of my will. Being broken by fate, however, I should have
told you.
"And by now you will have realized that you extended the hand of
friendship to one who had entirely forfeited the right to it. Is
it, perhaps, any compensation to you to know that your letters, your
kindness, have at least been received with humble gratitude, with the
most intense and overwhelming pleasure by one however unworthy to
receive them?
"I shall leave this cottage at daylight. My presence here longer
would, I know, be distasteful to you. I have no right to ask your
forgiveness, yet if one day you could extend it to me, and think less
hardly of me, I should be glad. The one thing I can do, and believe
you would wish me to do, is to destroy your letters. I cannot destroy
the memory of them--that is impossible, and I dare to hope that in
your generosity you will not grudge it to me.
"Presently I shall try to write again, and if ever fate should throw
my work in your path, and you deign to read it, then know that
whatever in it is of worth, whatever is in the smallest degree of
good, has been inspired by the thought of you.
"For all your blessed kindness, for the fact that you are you and are
in the world, I shall throughout my life be grateful.
"Perhaps one day I may get the chance to atone.
"PETER CARDEN."
The letter written, Peter got up from his chair and crossed to the
fireplace. In a few moments a flame sprang up, and some bluish papers
twisted and shrivelled in its heat. Presently nothing was left but a
small heap of grey ashes.
Peter sat very still. There was a lump in his throat, and he swallowed
hard once or twice, but his eyes were dry. A bird chirped in the bushes
outside the cottage; it was answered by another and another. The air
became full of a chorus of twitterings and chirpings.
Peter roused himself. He picked up his hat and a bundle from the table
and went to the cottage door. In the east the sky was flushing to rose
and lavender. Peter went down the path. He opened the little gate. A
moment later it had swung to behind him, and he was walking down the
dusty road.