power behind the throne;
but the gentleman from Texas was destined to think of that able diplomat
many times, and to wish that he still had him at his feet to advise him.

"War by midnight, sure!" he proclaimed on the morning of this fateful
Tuesday. "I tell you, Marian, we're lucky to have our tickets on the
Saronia. Five thousand dollars wouldn't buy them from me to-day! I'll be
a happy man when we go aboard that liner day after to-morrow."

Day after to-morrow! The girl wondered. At any rate, she would have that
last letter then--the letter that was to contain whatever defense
her young friend could offer to explain his dastardly act. She waited
eagerly for that final epistle.

The day dragged on, bringing at its close England's entrance into the
war; and the Carlton bootblack was a prophet not without honor in a
certain Texas heart. And on the following morning there arrived a letter
which was torn open by eager trembling fingers. The letter spoke:

DEAR LADY JUDGE: This is by far the hardest to write of all the letters
you have had from me. For twenty-four hours I have been planning it.
Last night I walked on the Embankment while the hansoms jogged by and
the lights of the tramcars danced on Westminster Bridge just as the
fireflies used to in the garden back of our house in Kansas. While I
walked I planned. To-day, shut up in my rooms, I was also planning. And
yet now, when I sit down to write, I am still confused; still at a loss
where to begin and what to say, once I have begun.

At the close of my last letter I confessed to you that it was I who
murdered Captain Fraser-Freer. That is the truth. Soften the blow as I
may, it all comes down to that. The bitter truth!

Not a week ago--last Thursday night at seven--I climbed our dark stairs
and plunged a knife into the heart of that defenseless gentleman. If
only I could point out to you that he had offended me in some way; if I
could prove to you that his death was necessary to me, as it really
was to Inspector Bray--then there might be some hope of your ultimate
pardon. But, alas! he had been most kind to me--kinder than I have
allowed you to guess from my letters. There was no actual need to do
away with him. Where shall I look for a defense?

At the moment the only defense I can think of is simply this--the
captain knows I killed him!

Even as I write this, I hear his footsteps above me, as I heard them
when I sat here composing my first letter to you. H