"I found Arabel but a mere wreck of her former self. Her countenance told
me how fearfully she had suffered. She was very ill, in a wretched room,
with no attendants or medical aid. I had her immediately removed to
lodgings suitable for her, and provided a nurse and a physician. From
that time she began to mend, and in a couple of days the physician
pronounced her out of immediate danger. When she knew her life was to be
prolonged, she refused to make the confession she had summoned me to
hear. So long as there was any prospect of her recovery, she said, she
must keep the matter a secret. But she could not die and leave it untold.
Therefore she promised that whenever she should feel death approaching
she should send again for me, and relieve her soul by the confession of
her sin. A few days ago came her second summons.
"Previous to this only a little while, I had been inadvertently a
listener to an altercation between Archer Trevlyn and his wife, during
which Mrs. Trevlyn, in a fit of rage, denounced her husband as the
murderer of Paul Linmere. She produced proofs, which I confess struck me
as strangely, satisfactory, and affirmed her belief in his guilt. She
also told him that because the knowledge of his crime had come to you,
you had discarded him, and left New York, to be rid of him forever!
"So knowing this, when I listened to the dying confession of Arabel Vere,
I knew that this confession would clear Archer Trevlyn from all shadow of
suspicion.
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