Page:The Millbank Case - 1905 - Eldridge.djvu/39

 them, I will already have been reunited to my wife and will have told her all that I write here, and so told it that she will feel my sincerity more clearly than I can make it felt by any written words.

"'Although born and raised in Millbank, I read law in the office of Judge Murdock in Bangor. My father had a great admiration for the judge and, dying early, before he had seen me admitted to the bar, asked his friend to take me into his office. If I have attained anything of note in my profession, I owe it largely to the fidelity with which Judge Murdock discharged his trust.

"'While in his office and shortly before I returned to Millbank, I became involved with a young woman of Bangor, who became by me the mother of the man now known as Theodore Wing—he will find his name legally established by action of the Legislature in 1841. Unfortunately, I can say little that is good of her; I will say nothing otherwise, if I can avoid it. I shirk no part of the responsibility for the wrong done. God alone knows that if she failed in true womanhood, then or after, it was not I who was wholly to blame. Thus much I can say, she was and