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.