I sank into a chair. Merivale picked up the envelope and studied it intently. “I can make nothing out of it,” he said.
“Give it to me—I will read it to you,” I rejoined.
This is what I read:—
“To be delivered to my son, Ernest Neuman, upon his attaining the age of one-and-twenty years. Let there be no failure, as the will of a dying man is honored.—To my son: Open and read on your twenty-first birthday. Be alone when you read.—Your father, Ernest Neuman.”
Neither of us broke silence for some minutes afterward.
At last, “I guess I’d better clear out,” said Merivale. “This is considerably more than we had bargained for. I suppose you’d like to be alone. I’ll remain in the next room. Call, if you want me.”
“Yes,” I returned, “I may as well read it at once. But do you know—it’s quite natural, doubtless—I really dread opening it? Who can tell what its contents may be? Who can tell what information it may convey, to the detriment of that ignorance which is bliss? Who can tell what duty it may impose—what change it may make necessary in my mode of life? I—I am really afraid of it. The superscription is not reassuring—and then, this strange accident by which it has reached its destination after so many years! It is like a fatality.”
“It is inevitable that you should feel this way. The suddenness of the business was enough to shatter your self-possession. At the same time you would best not delay about reading it. You won’t be able to rest until you’ve done so, you know.—Yes, indeed, it is like a fatality—like an incident in a novel—one of those happenings that we never expect to see occur in real life. I’ll wait in the next room till you call.”
My heart stood still as I broke the seal. Four double sheets of thin glazed paper, covered with minute German script. The ink was faded, and there were a good many blots and interlineations; so that it was only by dint of straining my eyesight to the utmost that I could decipher my father’s message. But screwing up my courage, I attacked it, nor did I pause till I had read the last word.