and which I must take alone, had I time left for thinking. But I have
not. I may last a week, or I may die in a few hours. Therefore, to the
point.

"In one small thing we deceived you, Alice and I--my name is not Aglen
at all; we took that name for certain reasons. Perhaps we were wrong,
but we thought that as we were quite poor, and likely to remain poor,
it would be well to keep our secret to ourselves. Forgive us both this
suppression of the truth. We were made poor by our own voluntary act
and deed, and because I married the only woman I loved.

"I was engaged to a girl whom I did not love. We had been brought up
like brother and sister together, but I did not love her, though I was
engaged to her. In breaking this engagement I angered my father. In
marrying Alice I angered him still more.

"I now know that he has forgiven me; he forgave me on his death-bed;
he revoked his former will and made me his sole heir--just as if
nothing had happened to destroy his old affection--subject to one
condition--viz., that the girl to whom I was first engaged should
receive the whole income until I, or my heirs, should return to
England in order to claim the inheritance.

"It is strange. I die in a wooden shanty, in a little Western town,
the editor of a miserable little country paper. I have not money
enough even to bury me, and yet, if I were at home, I might be called
a rich man, as men go. My little Iris will be an heiress. At the very
moment when I learn that I am my father's heir, I am struck down by
fever; and now I know that I shall never get up again.