Marian is living, and in England. I believe that scoundrelly father of hers
told me the truth when he declared that. You will not rest till you find
her, I know; and you will protect her fortune from that wretch. God bless
you, faithful old friend! Heaven knows how I yearn for the sight of your
honest face, lying here among strangers, to be buried in a foreign land.
See that my wife pays Mrs. Branston the money I borrowed to come here; and
tell her that I was grateful to her, and thought of her on my dying bed.
To my wife I send no message. She knows that I loved her; but how dear she
has been to me in this bitter time of separation, she can never know.
"You will find a bulky MS. at my chambers, in the bottom drawer on the
right side of my desk. It is my Life of Swift--unfinished as my own life.
If, after reading it, you should think it worth publishing, as a
fragment, with my name to it, I should wish you to arrange its
publication. I should be glad to leave my name upon something."
In a stranger's hand, and upon another sheet of paper, Gilbert read the
end of his friend's history.
"Sir,--I regret to inform you that your friend Mr. Saltram expired
at eleven o'clock last night (Wednesday, May 2nd), after an
illness of a fortnight's duration, throughout which I gave him my
best attention as his medical adviser.
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