Page:Under three flags; a story of mystery (IA underthreeflagss00tayliala).pdf/342

 the table to Barker. "Read that," he says. "Read it aloud."

The detective unfolds the document and reads:

"Santiago de Cuba, April 15.—This is written by the hand of fate. I shall not live to see to-morrow's sun rise. I know it. The presentiment of my end is so irresistible that no effort of will can shake it off. And I am glad that it is so. I could not endure another day such as this has been. I should go mad.

"To-day I saw the detective. I have felt that for months he has been pursuing me. And I have looked again into the eyes, the glittering, pitiless eyes, that stared at me nearly a year ago across the corpse of Roger Hathaway—the eyes of the man whom, to shield my son, I cruelly wronged. From the hour, a month or more ago, that I met Phillip Van Zandt I feared him. A nameless dread took possession of me. To-day I recognized him and I read hatred, contempt and menace in his eyes. He thinks I killed Roger Hathaway, and what manner of vengeance he has in store I know not.

"But Roger Hathaway killed himself. Together we wrecked the Raymond National Bank. It was the old story of unfortunate investments, and the blame was chiefly mine. But when the crash was imminent Hathaway proved the hero and I the coward. He killed himself and saved both his name and mine. And yet with that bullet he put an end to all his troubles, while I—I have suffered for months the tortures of the damned.

"With this I inclose his letter, which he left on his desk for me the evening of Memorial Day. It has been on my person since that fatal night, and it has seared my very soul. I have not dared to destroy it or to leave it where it might be found, for it is at once the proof of my guilt and of my innocence. If it becomes necessary to clear

"Ah, he is coming.

Cyrus Felton."

Barker mechanically unfolds the inclosure, three sheets of letter paper crumpled and worn. The stillness within the cabin is deathlike as the detective reads:

"Before your eyes rest upon these lines the hand that pens them will be cold in death. I have taken the only alternative. For myself I care not, but that the finger of scorn should be pointed at my defenseless children; that their young lives should be blighted and they shunned and avoided as lepers because their father betrayed his trust and cruelly wronged his friends and neighbors, I cannot bear it. The banks, both of them, are irretrievably involved. The funds deposited by the county to pay the bonds have been used to meet pressing obligations. The crash would come to-morrow. It cannot