"
"I am writing to ask you for help--you will wonder how I can. So do
I. I wonder at myself. But I know you are the best of fellows, and I
feel you will help me now in spite of all that has happened. Victor
send me what you can, as near 15 Pounds Sterling as possible, to
save me from irrevocable disgrace. I have no one but yourself to
apply to. If you refuse I am done for. You will know what a
desperate position I am in, I must be in, to ask you at all.--Yours
in despair and everlasting regret, HOWARD."
I read it through, and then dropped the letter and its envelope into
the fire, glad to get rid of the sight of the familiar hand. And I
watched it burn, and I thought of the manuscript which must have
curled and writhed in the same way, leaf by leaf, as he lighted it,
and I asked myself again--What is forgiveness?
I knew that I hated him. I had now the opportunity of consigning him
to "irrevocable disgrace," as he put it. But I knew that I should
send him the help he asked for on the same principle as I had
refrained from injuring him, forgiven him, shaken hands with him.
And why? I wondered. What was my motive? Simply, I think, a mere
instinct to preserve my own self-respect.
I enclosed a cheque for 20 Pounds Sterling in a blank sheet of
paper, put it in an envelope, and went out that same night and
posted it.
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