Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/35

Rh first personal shock, he had become at once a trustee—the trustee of the university whose treasurer lay dead in his office just as his accounts were to be submitted to the board. He dismissed his wife hurriedly. "Now, Trant, let us go up."

President Joslyn met Branower's grasp mechanically and acquainted the president of the trustees, almost curtly, with the facts as he had found them.

Then the eyes of the two men met significantly.

"It seems, Joslyn," Branower used almost the same words that Joslyn had used just before his arrival, "like a—confession! It is suicide?" the president of the trustees was revolting at the charge.

"I can see no other solution," the president replied, "though Mr. Trant—"

"And I might have saved this, at least!" The trustee's face had grown white as he looked down at the man on the couch. "Oh, Lawrie, why did I put you off to the last moment?"

He turned, fumbling in his pocket for a letter. "He sent this Saturday," he confessed, pitifully. "I should have come to him at once, but I could not suspect this."

Joslyn read the letter through with a look of increased conviction. It was in the clear hand of the dead treasurer. "This settles all," he said, decidedly, and he re-read it aloud:


 * I pray you, as you have pity for a man with sixty years of probity behind him facing dishonor and disgrace, to come to me at the earliest possible hour. Do not, I pray, delay later than Monday, I implore you.