There
must, I think, have been something nearly approaching to guilt on the
second brother's part, and the bride should have broken a solemnly
plighted troth to the elder brother, breaking away from him when almost
his wife. The elder brother had been known to have been wounded at the
time of the second brother's disappearance; and it had been the surmise
that he had received this hurt in the personal conflict in which the
latter was slain. But in truth the second brother had stabbed him in the
emergency of being discovered in the act of escaping with the bride; and
this was what weighed upon his conscience throughout life in America.
The American family had prolonged itself through various fortunes, and
all the ups and downs incident to our institutions, until the present
day. They had some old family documents, which had been rather
carelessly kept; but the present representative, being an educated man,
had looked over them, and found one which interested him strongly. It
was--what was it?--perhaps a copy of a letter written by his ancestor on
his deathbed, telling his real name, and relating the above incidents.
These incidents had come down in a vague wild way, traditionally, in the
American family, forming a wondrous and incredible legend, which
Middleton had often laughed at, yet been greatly interested in; and the
discovery of this document seemed to give a certain aspect of veracity
and reality to the tradition.
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