"Your proof!" he demanded.
"It is here," I said, and I held out to him Miles's report; "you may have it; it will show you that you have no chance."
He seemed to deliberate and then slowly, hesitatingly, like a man making up his mind to something, he reached out and took the report from me, and in the act our hands met and at the touch his face flushed, but mine grew pale and I wavered. Suddenly he extended his hand to me and I took it.
"It is all right, Dick," he said, but my head was bent and I did not answer, and when I looked up he was gone.
I never saw him again, but the next morning's mail brought me this letter from him:
THE LAST LETTER
"You are right; your dogged persistence has at last accomplished its purpose and my end, and to what good? White is dead, Winters is dead, and I shall be within a few hours. The tragedy has worked itself out. I do not know that I am sorry the game is played,—life's game it has proven with me; neither do I reproach you for your part in it. I might have lived a few years longer, but I am not sure that I wish to. My life has lasted sixty years, and they have not been so free from trouble that I should crave a few more waning ones. The world owes me little, and I owe it less; let us separate while we are at peace.
"I should wish, if you can find it consistent with that importunate conscience of yours, that you would leave my memory as it now abides with my friends, pleasantly, likely, and not overburdensome. I would not ask even this, but all I take with me, or leave behind, is the good-will of a few men, and I would as soon as it were not too rudely ended.
"To you I am a murderer: not a pleasant word for a man to use about himself; but the truth, nevertheless. I have not always agreed with other men, and I do not in this, but such would be their verdict and I recognize it.
"I was the instrument that brought about the death of White, just as I shall be the instrument of my own death, but it was the original act conceived in the mind of White that started the train of events that led successively to both consequences. Had he been different in temperament, or had I, it might have been otherwise, but with the conditions as they existed, it was inevitable, and, after the initial step was once taken, it was better so. He was less unhappy when we saw him that morning after than he was when we left him the night before, and I shall be at peace when you see me again, as I have not been in many days.