ied.

I took up the roll and looked at it. It was the manuscript of a poem in
blank verse.

"I have been with it into a dozen newspaper and magazine offices," he
explained with great bitterness. "Had I succeeded in getting a publisher
for it I might have forgotten my wrongs and tried to build up a new life
on the ruins of the old. But they would not have it, none of them, so I
say, burn it! that no memory of me may remain in this miserable world."

"Keep to the facts!" I severely retorted. "It was while carrying this
poem from one newspaper to another that you secured that bit of print
upon the blank side of which you yourself printed the obituary notice
with which you savored your revenge upon the woman who had disappointed
you."

"You know that? Then you know where I got the poison with which I tipped
the silly toy with which that weak man fooled away his life?"

"No," said I, "I do not know where you got it. I merely know it was no
common poison bought at a druggist's, or from any ordinary chemist."

"It was woorali; the deadly, secret woorali. I got it from--but that
is another man's secret. You will never hear from me anything that will
compromise a friend. I got it, that is all. One drop, but it killed my
man."

The satisfaction, the delight, which he threw into these words are
beyond description. As they left his lips a jet of flame from the
neglected fire shot up and threw his figure for one instant into bold
relief upon the lowering ceiling; then it died out, and nothing but the
twilight dusk remained in the room and on the countenance of this doomed
and despairing man.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Difficult Problem, by
Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DIFFICULT PROBLEM ***

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