When all was arranged, and she
was once more able to enjoy perfect tranquillity, she returned to
Avignon, and there discharged her last duty to her father. This was
to open a letter she had found in his desk, inscribed by his hand:
"For Lydia. To be read by her at leisure when I and my affairs shall
be finally disposed of." The letter ran thus:
"MY DEAR LYDIA,--I belong to the great company of disappointed men.
But for you, I should now write myself down a failure like the rest.
It is only a few years since it first struck me that although I had
failed in many ambitions with which (having failed) I need not
trouble you now, I had achieved some success as a father. I had no
sooner made this discovery than it began to stick in my thoughts
that you could draw no other conclusion from the course of our life
together than that I have, with entire selfishness, used you
throughout as my mere amanuensis and clerk, and that you are under
no more obligation to me for your attainments than a slave is to his
master for the strength which enforced labor has given to his
muscles. Lest I should leave you suffering from so mischievous and
oppressive an influence as a sense of injustice, I now justify
myself to you.
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