After musing for some time, Marston drew towards him a sheet of
paper, and, taking up a pen, wrote:

"MY DEAR SIR:--What I ought to have done years ago, I do now, and
that is, offer you a sincere apology for light words thoughtlessly
spoken, but which I ought not to have used, as they were calculated
to wound, and, I am grieved to think, did wound. But for your note,
which I enclose, I should have made this apology the moment I had an
opportunity. But its peculiar tenor, I then felt, precluded me from
doing so. I confess that I erred in letting my feelings blind my
cooler judgment.

"Your old friend, MARSTON.

"To Mr. Herbert Arnest."

Enclosing the note alluded to in this letter, Marston sealed, and,
ringing for an attendant, despatched it.

"Better to do right late than never," he murmured, as he leaned
pensively back in his chair.

"Let what will come of it, I shall feel better, for I will gain my
own self-respect, and have an inward assurance that I have done
right,--more than I have for a long time had, in regard to this
matter at least."

Relieved in mind, Marston commenced looking over some papers in
reference to matters of business then on hand, and was soon so much