I should never have assumed it, but for the
fact that your ardent devotion to science may render you the
easy dupe--and your daughter the innocent victim--of a
designing and heartless man of the world. I do not ask you to
believe the writer of an anonymous note, and therefore I make
no specific charges against this Wilkeson; but merely ask you
to inquire into his private character, and, above all, his
MOTIVES, for yourself.
ONE OF MANY.
Though Marcus Wilkeson was as innocent as a child, in deed and thought,
of the baseness hinted at in this letter, he felt that he was looking
guilty. Astonishment and indignation kindled in his eyes; but a flush of
shame mounted at the same time to his cheeks. Marcus had often said,
that if he were tapped on the shoulder in the street, and charged with a
petty theft, he would look guilty of grand larceny until he could regain
command of his feelings. This diseased sensitiveness, inherited from his
mother, was the curse of his physical and mental organization.
His shame was increased by a consciousness that the inventor was
stealthily watching him, and studying the enlargement of those horrid
red spots on his cheeks.
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