human
Olive, he said,
gpt
I have been writing a letter this evening--a letter which I want you to deliver for me to-morrow morning.
human
Very well, Matthew. You know that I am entirely at your service. To whom is the letter addressed?
gpt
To Eleanor Lloyd.
human
Ah!--then you have made up your mind at last to tell her everything?
gpt
I have made up my mind to tell her this: that I have discovered that she is not the daughter of Jacob Lloyd, and, consequently, not entitled to his property. But I have not made up my mind to tell her that I've known this fact for more than six months, and have concealed it purposely from her. I cannot tell her that.
human
But why do you wish me to take the letter? Why not send it through the post?
gpt
Because I am too weak at present to put down in writing more than the barest outline of the facts, and I want you to supplement by word of mouth what my letter fails to convey.
human
Why not wait till you are a little stronger--till you can tell her, in person, all that it is necessary she should be told?
gpt
Not one day longer will I wait. Eleanor Lloyd shall know the great secret of her life before she is twenty-four hours older.
human
As you will. Perhaps you are right, said Olive, quietly.
gpt
There is no reason why Miss Lloyd should be kept in ignorance any longer.
human
None whatever. I don't remember anything in my life that I have regretted so bitterly as not having told Eleanor at first. But it is useless to speak of the past. The future is all we can now deal with.
gpt
Then your feeling of resentment towards Miss Lloyd has an existence no longer?
human
It is wholly dead. A sick-bed alters one's views and feelings in many ways. How can a man have room in his heart for any petty jealousies or resentments when he sees the shades of death closing slowly round him? To me all such feelings now seem as strange as though they were those of another man, about which I had read somewhere, and had never been a portion of my own inner life.