a trick in return, they set his
boat adrift by cutting the rope that tied the craft to a tree on the
bank. The confession states that they supposed the owner was then aboard
and would suffer no greater hardship than having to use the sweeps
with considerable energy to row her in to a landing again. They were
genuinely horrified when he came running down the bank, both arms
out-stretched, crying out that his all, _his all_ was floating away on
that tumultutius, merciless tide. Before any skiff could be launched,
before any effort could be made to reach the trading-boat, she suddenly
disappeared. The Mississippi was at flood height, and it was thought
that the boat struck some drifting obstruction, swamped, and went down
in deep water. The agents in this disaster were never suspected, but as
soon as Jasper Keene had come of age, and had command of any means of
his own, his first act was to have an exhaustive search made for the
old fellow, with a view of financial restitution. But the owner of the
trading-boat had died, spending his last years in the futile effort to
obtain the insurance money. As the little he had left was never claimed,
no representative could profit by the restitution that Jasper Keene had
planned, and he found what satisfaction he could in giving it secretly
to an old man's charity. Then the phantom began to take his revenge. He
appeared on the banks of Bogue Holauba, and straightway the only child
of the mansion sickened and died. Mr. Keene's first wife died after the
second apparition. Either it was the fancy of an ailing man, or perhaps
the general report, but he notes that the spectre was bewailing its woes
along the banks of Bogue Holauba when Jasper Keene himself was stricken
by an illness which from the first he felt was fatal."

"I remember--I remember it was said at the time," Geraldine barely
whispered.

"And now to the question: he leaves it to Mr. Gordon as his kinsman,
solicitous of the family repute, to judge whether this confession
should be made public or destroyed."

"Does he state any reasons for making it public?" demanded Geraldine,
taking the document and glancing through its pages.

"Yes; as an expiation of his early misdeeds toward this man and, if any
such thing there be, to placate the spirit of his old enemy; and lastly
better to secure his peace with his Maker."

"And which do you say!" Geraldine turned an eager, spirited face toward
Gordon, his dejected attitude and co