jeweller's case and the package of letters, she opened
the envelope which bore her name and drew out a folded sheet of paper,
covered with Patrick's small, characteristic writing. Impulsively she
brushed it with her lips, then, leaning back in her chair, began to
read, her expression growing curiously intent as she absorbed the
contents of the letter. Once she smiled, and more than once a sudden
rush of unbidden tears blurred the closely written lines in front of
her.

"When you receive this, little pal Sara"--ran the letter--"I shall have
done with this world. Except that it means leaving you, my dear, I shall
be glad to go, for I'm a very tired man. So, when it comes, you must try
not to grudge me my 'long leave.' But there are several things you ought
to know, and which I want you to know, yet I have never been able to
bring myself to speak of them to you. To tell you about them meant
digging into the past--and very often there is a hot coal lingering
in the heart of a dead fire that is apt to burn the fingers of whoever
rakes out the ashes. Frankly, then, I funked it. But now the time has
come when I can't put it off any longer.

"Little old pal, have you ever wondered why I loved you so much--why you
stood so close to my heart? I used to tease you and say it was because
we were no relation to each other, didn't I? If you had been really my
niece, proper respect (on your part, of course, for your aged uncle!)
and the barrier of a generation would have set us the usual miles apart.
But there was never anything of that with us, was there? I bullied you,
I know, when you needed it, but we were always comrades. And to me, you
were something more than a comrade, something almost sacred and always
adorable--the child of the woman I loved.

"For we should have been married, Sara, your mother and I, had I not
been a poor man. We were engaged, but at that time, I was only a younger
son, with a younger son's meager portion, and the prospect of my falling
heir to Barrow seemed of all things the most improbable. And Pauline
Malincourt, your mother, had been taught to abhor the idea of living
on small means--trained to regard her beauty and breeding as marketable
assets, to go to the highest bidder. For, although her parents came of
fine old stock--there's no better blood in England than the Malincourt
strain, my dear--they were deadly hard-up. So hard-up, that when they
died--as the result of a carriage accident which occurr