as he knows you need him. Accept his counsels, laugh at
his little eccentricities if you will, but follow his judgment
implicitly. Above all, ask him no questions that he does not care to
answer--there are things that he may not deem wise to tell. It is only
fair that he be given the right to choose his disclosures.

There is little more to say. Beamish will attend to everything for
you--if you care to go. Sell everything that is here; the house, the
furniture, the belongings. It is my wish, and you will need the
capital--if you go. The ledgers in the safe are only old accounts
which would be so much Chinese to you now. Burn them. There is
nothing else to be afraid of--I hope you will never find anything to
fear. And if circumstances should arise to bring before you the story
of that which has caused me so much darkness, I have nothing to say in
self-extenuation. I made one mistake--that of fear--and in committing
one error, I shouldered every blame. It makes little difference now.
I am dead--and free.

My love to you, my son. I hope that wealth and happiness await you.
Blood of my blood flows in your veins--and strange though it may sound
to you--it is the blood of an adventurer. I can almost see you smile
at that! An old man who sat by the window, staring out; afraid of
every knock at the door--and yet an adventurer! But they say, once in
the blood, it never dies. My wish is that you succeed where I
failed--and God be with you!

Your father.

For a long moment Robert Fairchild stood staring at the letter, his
heart pounding with excitement, his hands grasping the foolscap paper
as though with a desire to tear through the shield which the written
words had formed about a mysterious past and disclose that which was so
effectively hidden. So much had the letter told--and yet so little!
Dark had been the hints of some mysterious, intangible thing, great
enough in its horror and its far-reaching consequences to cause death
for one who had known of it and a living panic for him who had
perpetrated it. As for the man who stood now with the letter clenched
before him, there was promise of wealth, and the threat of sorrow, the
hope of happiness, yet the foreboding omen of discoveries which might
ruin the life of the reader as the existence of the writer had been
blasted,--until death had brought relief. Of all this had the letter
told, but when Robert Fairchild read it again in the hope of something