“I remembered the man and I wanted the money; so, not being able to go for it myself, I authorised James Zabel to collect it for me.  He started at once for Sutherlandtown, and in a few hours returned with the wallet alluded to.  Though I was suffering intensely at the time, I remember distinctly the air with which he laid it down and the words with which he endeavoured to carry off a certain secret excitement visible in him.  ’Mr. Orr was alive, sir, and fully conscious; but he will not outlive the night.  He seemed quite satisfied with the messenger and gave up the wallet without any hesitation.’  I roused up and looked at him.  ’What has shaken you up so?’ I asked.  He was silent a moment before replying.  ‘I have ridden fast,’ said he; then more slowly, ’One feels sorry for a man dying alone and amongst strangers.’  I thought he showed an unnecessary emotion, but paid no further heed to it at the time.

“The wallet held two thousand and more dollars, which was less than I expected, but yet a goodly sum and very welcome.  As I was counting it over I glanced at the paper accompanying it.  It was an acknowledgment of debt and mentioned the exact sum I should find in the wallet—­$2753.67.  Pointing them out to James, I remarked, ’The figures are in different ink from the words.  How do you account for that?’ I thought his answer rather long in coming, though when it did come it was calm, if not studied.  ‘I presume,’ said he, ’that the sum was inserted at Sutherlandtown, after Mr. Orr was quite sure just how much he could spare for the liquidation of this old debt.’  ‘Very likely,’ I assented, not bestowing another thought upon the matter.

“But to-day it has been forced back upon my attention in a curious if not providential way.  I was over in Sutherlandtown for the first time since my illness, and having some curiosity about my unfortunate but honest debtor, went to the hotel and asked to see the room in which he died.  It being empty they at once showed it to me; and satisfied that he had been made comfortable in his last hours, I was turning away, when I espied on a table in one corner an inkstand and what seemed to be an old copy-book.  Why I stopped and approached this table I do not know, but once in front of it I remembered what Zabel had said about the figures, and taking up the pen I saw there, I dipped it in the ink-pot and attempted to scribble a number or two on a piece of loose paper I found in the copy-book.  The ink was thick and the pen corroded, so that it was not till after several ineffectual efforts that I succeeded in making any strokes that were at all legible.  But when I did, they were so exactly similar in colour to the numbers inserted in Mr. Orr’s memorandum (which I had fortunately brought with me) that I was instantly satisfied this especial portion of the writing had been done, as James had said, in this room, and with the very pen I was then handling.  As there was nothing extraordinary in this, I was turning away, when a gust of wind from