Page:Melville Davisson Post--The Man of Last Resort.djvu/304

280 not necessary for the marshal's deputy to speculate about this picture.

Then he went over to the cabinet and took out a pack of letters, old, yellow, tied with a faded ribbon, and, selecting one at random, sat down in his chair to read it through. “Dear Heart,” it ran at the beginning, and at the end “I am unutterably lonely, and I love you.” Yes, he recalled the circumstances of its writing well. Then he replaced it with the others and laid them all gently on the fire. They should not be pleasant reading for the marshal.

He had come down into the world, with his heart shredded and every shred aching like a nerve, and from that day he had flown the black flag of piracy. Among all the buccaneers of the street, the hand of none had been heavier, and the brain of none had been keener than his own. From that day every man who had passed up a prisoner on to the deck of his galleon, had walked the plank. The muscles of his face grew tense with the thought.

Somewhere in the house a clock struck ten. Carper arose and walked backward and forward