together, father and son before the fire, silent for hours. Then the
hand of the white-haired man had reached outward and rested for a
moment on the young man's knee.

"I wrote something to you, Boy, a day or so ago," he had said. "That
little illness I had prompted me to do it. I--I thought it was only
fair to you. After I 'm gone, look in the safe. You 'll find the
combination on a piece of paper hidden in a hole cut in that old
European history in the bookcase. I have your promise, I know--that
you 'll not do it until after I 'm gone."

Now Thornton Fairchild was gone. But a message had remained behind;
one which the patient lips evidently had feared to utter during life.
The heart of the son began to pound, slow and hard, as, with the memory
of that conversation, he turned toward the bookcase and unlatched the
paneled door. A moment more and the hollowed history had given up its
trust, a bit of paper scratched with numbers. Robert Fairchild turned
toward the stairs and the small room on the second floor which had
served as his father's bedroom.

There he hesitated before the little iron safe in the corner, summoning
the courage to unlock the doors of a dead man's past. At last he
forced himself to his knees and to the numerals of the combination.

The safe had not been opened in years; that was evident from the
creaking of the plungers as they fell, the gummy resistance of the knob
as Fairchild turned it in accordance with the directions on the paper.
Finally, a great wrench, and the bolt was drawn grudgingly back; a
strong pull, and the safe opened.

A few old books; ledgers in sheepskin binding. Fairchild disregarded
these for the more important things that might lie behind the little
inner door of the cabinet. His hand went forward, and he noticed, in a
hazy sort of way, that it was trembling. The door was unlocked; he
drew it open and crouched a moment, staring, before he reached for the
thinner of two envelopes which lay before him. A moment later he
straightened and turned toward the light. A crinkling of paper, a
quick-drawn sigh between clenched teeth; it was a letter; his strange,
quiet, hunted-appearing father was talking to him through the medium of
ink and paper, after death.

Closely written, hurriedly, as though to finish an irksome task in as
short a space as possible, the missive was one of several pages,--pages
which Robert Fairchild hesitated to read. The secret--and he knew