he water, with
big, big waves--I was--so long, so long. But I wore it on a strap around
my neck. Planck wrote it all and sealed it and put it in the box. Then
he died, and I had promised; so I had to come, else I would have died,
too. I wanted to, without Planck. But we'd told it to each other. We was
good friends. Planck never called me 'fool,' not once, not in all our
lives. When he went away with not a cent in his pocket, I couldn't stand
it. Old Squire was rough. Old Squire was rich. Planck should be rich,
too, just one little box full, anyway. But--He wrote it all down--read
it, read it. Read it out real plain, like he was saying it again. My
head aches. I can't think. Planck could think. But--Planck is dead."

In a dull despair the poor wretch who had journeyed so many leagues,
across so many lands, through so many weary years, dropped his face in
his hands, and wept like a child.

But with dry eyes, if tremulous hands, Elinor Sturtevant opened the
letter as she had been besought. It bore date of a day long past, and
address of Majomba, Africa, in the familiar script of her idolized son;
yet keeping nothing secret to herself, she did "read it out," and this
it was:

"MY DEAR MOTHER:--I send my farewell to you from this distant
corner of the earth, where I came seeking fortune and finding
death. Nathan has just got well of the fever from which I am
dying, and promises to carry this letter to you. I have no
money to send it by post even if I did not think it kindness to
entrust him with it. He has loved me, been faithful to me even
unto death, and it will be a last trust to comfort him. I
foresee that he will have many vicissitudes before he reaches
home--if ever he does; though it is my prayer that he may and
that dear old Marsden will receive him kindly.

"It is his wish, and it is but just, to explain that he stole
your brass bound box, in which I enclose this, and why. Simply
for my unworthy sake. He believed that it held money, and a
fear that I would be angry with him if I knew of the deed, made
him keep it secret for a long, long time. Then once, in dire
necessity, after Elizabeth was gone, he did confess and give it
to me, and we opened it together.

"It was absolutely empty. I tell you this, dying; when a man
speaks the truth. If ever it held valuables they had been
removed, and, presumably, by my fathe