"Does it cause you surprise to have me say that I carefully preserved that bit of paper, and swore to make him meet the obligation when the day of reckoning might come? This explains to you that cause, which at the outset I said brings with it a result which now is, and always has been, inevitable.
"Of course it is certain that had I been able to find my betrayer while my anger still raged, and my anguish yet at its most acute point, I would simply have shot the man on sight, recklessly, thoughtlessly. But I could not get trace of him, and so had time to think.
"Too late I learned that I had made one dreadful error. I have told you my views of love, how engendered and how nourished. My mistake was in thinking that such a love is the necessary rather than merely the possible result of constant companionship between congenial spirits. In my own heart the fire of true love burned only too brightly, but with Juanita, poor child, it was but the glow reflected from my own inward fires that warmed her heart. She was happy with me, sharing my life, and when I asked her to marry me, mistook her calm friendship for what she had heard called love. Love she had never experienced. When later the younger man devoted himself to her, she was probably first merely intoxicated by an overpowering animal magnetism, which was nothing but passion. But even as I have admitted that this impulsive desire may drift into the truer, nobler quality of love, so, later, I found, must have been the case with my cherished one.
"A full year passed before I had the least idea of the whereabouts of the elopers. Then one day the mail brought me a brief, plaintive note from her. All she wrote was, 'Dear one, forgive me. Juanita.' The date showed that it had been written on the anniversary of our wedding, and from this I knew that the day had brought to her remorseful memories of me. But the envelope bore a postmark, and I knew at last that they were in a suburb of the great metropolis.
"I started for New York that very night, bent on vengeance. But one approaches a revengeful deed in a different spirit a year after the infliction of the wrong, and so by the time I reached my destination, my mind had attained a judicial attitude, and my purpose was tempered by the evident wisdom of investigating before acting. I had little difficulty in finding the nest to which my bird had flown, and a happy nest it appeared to be. It seems like yesterday, and the picture is distinct before my vision. I came cautiously towards the cottage, which was surrounded by a grassy lawn, and my heart came into my throat with a choking sensation as suddenly I saw her there, my little Juanita, lazily swinging in a hammock under a great elm, singing! Singing so merrily that I could not doubt that she was, for the moment at least, happy. So, then, she was happy—happy with him. The thought affected me in a twofold manner. I resented her happiness for myself, and gloried in it for her own sake. I did not venture to interrupt her life by intruding myself into it. I quietly prosecuted my inquiries, and learned that she was known as his wife, indeed that a regular marriage had taken place. Thus at least he gave her the apparent protection of his name. Moreover, I found that he was still kind to her, and that the two were counted a happy couple.
"Therefore I returned to Texas, and never again set eyes upon my dear one, in life. But before leaving I perfected arrangements whereby I might receive regular communications, and so be in the position to know how it fared with Juanita, and I am bound to admit that the reports were ever favorable. So far as I know, he always treated her with loving kindness. In exchange for this, he must count that he has been left undisturbed by me. On that score, then, we are quits. But the paper on which he wrote that infamous I. O. U. remained, and so long as it was in my possession it was an obligation still to be met.
"Five years elapsed, and then one day suddenly I was summoned by telegraph. Juanita was ill—was likely to die. I sped North as fast as the swiftest express train could travel, but I arrived three hours after her sweet spirit had flown. He did not recognize me as I mingled with the crowd in the house at the funeral, and so got a last glimpse of her face. But after the grave was filled, and the little mound was covered with flowers, the mound which held all that had stood between him and fate, I stepped forward and stood where his eyes must meet mine.
"At first he did not recognize me, but presently he knew me, and the abject terror that came into his face brought to me the first sensation of pleasure that I had experienced since that hour in which I had found my home deserted. I stepped back into the crowd, and I saw him look about eagerly, and pass his hand across his eyes, as though brushing aside some horrible vision. But he was soon to learn that it was no spectral fancy, but myself with whom he had to deal.
"I waited till nightfall and then sought him at his house, and told him my purpose. I showed him that bit of paper on which he had scrawled the words 'I. O. U. One wife,' and I told him that in exacting a settlement we would change the letter 'w' to the letter 'l.' That for my wife, I would expect his life, in return. I gave him a respite of a few days, but this he will explain to you. I know this, for twice have I seen him approach your offices, and then alter his mind and depart without going in. But his fate is now so near that by to-morrow, at the latest, he will no longer have the courage to delay. He will go to you. He will lie to you. He will endeavor to obtain your aid. Fool! Of what avail? He cannot escape even if you undertake to assist him. But after reading the truth, as here written, will you?"
Mr. Mitchel put down the last page of the statement, and, turning to Mr. Barnes, he said: