Page:The Blind Man's Eyes (July 1916).pdf/230



ARRIET went down the stair into the study; she passed through the study into the main part of the house and found Donald and sent him to her father; then she returned to the study. She closed and fastened the doors, and after glancing about the room, she removed the books in front of the wall-safe to the right of the door, slid back the movable panel, opened the safe and took out a bundle of correspondence. She closed safe and panel and put back the books; and carrying the correspondence to her father's desk, she began to look over it.

This correspondence—a considerable bundle of letters held together with wire clips and the two envelopes bound with tape which she had put into the safe the day before—made up the papers of which her father had spoken to her. These letters represented the contentions of willful, powerful and sometimes ruthless and violent men. Ruin of one man by another—ruin financial, social or moral, or all three together—was the intention of the principals concerned in this correspondence; too often, she knew, one man or one group had carried out a fierce intent upon another; and sometimes, she was aware, these bitter feuds had carried certain of her father's clients further even than personal or family ruin: fraud, violence and—twice now