and found it, as one might suppose, a very ordinary chamber.  The two men died perfectly natural deaths, and there is the last to be said on the subject.  I mention it only from the fear that enclosed may contain some allusion to the rubbish, a perusal of which might check the wholesome convalescence of your thoughts.  If you take my advice, you will throw the packet into the fire unread.  At least, if you do examine it, postpone the duty till you feel yourself absolutely impervious to any mental trickery, and—­bear in mind that you are a worthy member of a particularly matter-of-fact and unemotional profession.”

* * * * *

I smiled at the last clause, for I was now in a condition to feel a rather warm shame over my erst weak-knee’d collapse before a sheet and an illuminated turnip.  I took the packet to my bedroom, shut the door, and sat myself down by the open window.  The garden lay below me, and the dewy meadows beyond.  In the one, bees were busy ruffling the ruddy gillyflowers and April stocks; in the other, the hedge twigs were all frosted with Mary buds, as if Spring had brushed them with the fleece of her wings in passing.

I fetched a sigh of content as I broke the seal of the packet and brought out the enclosure.  Somewhere in the garden a little sardonic laugh was clipt to silence.  It came from groom or maid, no doubt; yet it thrilled me with an odd feeling of uncanniness, and I shivered slightly.

“Bah!” I said to myself determinedly.  “There is a shrewd nip in the wind, for all the show of sunlight;” and I rose, pulled down the window, and resumed my seat.

Then in the closed room, that had become deathly quiet by contrast, I opened and read the dead man’s letter.

* * * * *

“Sir,—­I hope you will read what I here put down.  I lay it on you as a solemn injunction, for I am a dying man, and I know it.  And to who is my death due, and the Governor’s death, if not to you, for your pryin’ and curiosity, as surely as if you had drove a nife through our harts?  Therefore, I say, Read this, and take my burden from me, for it has been a burden; and now it is right that you that interfered should have it on your own mortal shoulders.  The Major is dead and I am dying, and in the first of my fit it went on in my head like cimbells that the trap was left open, and that if he passed he would look in and it would get him.  For he knew not fear, neither would he submit to bullying by God or devil.

“Now I will tell you the truth, and Heaven quit you of your responsibility in our destruction.