fe went on it seemed more and more as
if some curse were on me.

"Eleven years ago I went abroad with my wife and daughter. Business took
me to Paris, and I left the ladies in London, expecting to have them
join me in a few days. But they never did join me, for the curse was on
me still, and before I had been forty-eight hours in the French capital
something happened that completed the wreck of my life. It doesn't seem
possible, does it, that a simple white card with some words scrawled on
it in purple ink could effect a man's undoing? And yet that was my fate.
The card was given me by a beautiful woman with eyes like stars. She is
dead long ago, and why she wished to harm me I never knew. You must find
that out.

"You see I did not know the language of the country, and, wishing to
have the words translated,--surely that was natural enough,--I showed
the card to others. But no one would tell me what it meant. And, worse
than that, wherever I showed it, and to whatever person, there evil came
upon me quickly. I was driven from one hotel after another; an old
acquaintance turned his back on me; I was arrested and thrown into
prison; I was ordered to leave the country."

The sick man paused for a moment in his weakness, but with an effort
forced himself to continue:--

"When I went back to London, sure of comfort in the love of my wife, she
too, on seeing the card, drove me from her with cruel words. And when
finally, in deepest despair, I returned to New York, dear old Jack, the
friend of a life-time, broke with me when I showed him what was written.
What the words were I do not know, and suppose no one will ever know,
for the ink has faded these many years. You will find the card in my
safe with other papers. But I want you, when I am gone, to find out the
mystery of my life; and--and--about my fortune, that must be held until
you have decided. There is no one who needs my money as much as the poor
in this city, and I have bequeathed it to them unless--"

In an agony of mind, Mr. Burwell struggled to go on, I soothing and
encouraging him.

"Unless you find what I am afraid to think, but--but--yes, I must say
it,--that I have not been a good man, as the world thinks, but have--O
doctor, if you find that I have unknowingly harmed any human being, I
want that person, or these persons, to have my fortune. Promise that."

Seeing the wild light in Burwell's eyes, and the fever that was burning
him, I gave the promise a