"I think of you more and more. I wish I dared go to you and make myself known. But I have put it off too long. I know now that I shall never go. This is the only medium I can use to communicate with you. You will know me after I am gone. Who knows, perhaps I shall have left a friend here after all."
Several pages of good advice followed here; cynical, humorous, friendly, out of the old millionaire's store of experience. A very different Silas Gyde was revealed from him the world knew. But for the moment Jack skimmed over this part hastily in his anxiety to learn more of the facts bearing on his benefactor's end.
The last entry was only three days old.
"Three years have now elapsed since I told you of the first threats against my life. The threats have been renewed from time to time. That I am still above ground is due to no lack of effort on the part of my enemy, I am sure. More and more I feel that one man is behind it all. One attempt has been made on my life that I know of, and no doubt others. My supposed room in the Madagascar has been entered. But my real abiding-place is still my secret, I believe.
"Now I want to tell you of a new direction their activities have taken.
"About three weeks ago in the flock of begging letters that assail me every day there was one which caught my attention. It purported to be from a young girl struggling to make her way in New York as a visiting stenographer, and asked me if I could give her occasional work. An affecting note of simplicity seemed to distinguish it from the usual type of such letters. 'Why shouldn't even Silas Gyde do a good act?' I asked myself, and sent for her to come to the public writing room of the hotel.
"Previous to that I had been dictating to public stenographers wherever I happened to drop in. They didn't know me of course, and thus my business secrets were safeguarded. So you see it was at somewhat of a sacrifice that I engaged my pretty petitioner.
"She was extremely pretty, and seemingly well-bred. Her modest manner carried out the promise of her letter. Perhaps I am not sufficiently experienced with the sex. No man ever fooled me for long. For two weeks she came every day that I needed her. She was not a very expert stenographer but filled my simple demands. I noticed on her part a willingness to enter into more personal relations with her employer, but I didn't blame her for that, poor girl. A hundred millions I supposed was enough to sugar even such an old pill as Silas Gyde.
"But a week ago in amongst the bundle of completed letters she left with me, had been slipped by chance the page of a letter she had been writing on her own account. The beginning was missing, but the piece I had was sufficiently significant. I will paste it below."
The inserted typewritten page read as follows: