The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-01-05
THE ADVERTISERS DAILY SHORT STORY

morrow at o'cl0cky Come prepared to . man who hopes the world will receive more benefit from his gift to 1t than 1t ever has from him. Julian Searles.
 T found this letter on my desk three days ago. Since then it seems as If I had lived years. because I have had one Q. the strangest experiences that ever comes to mana glimpse, almost. of another world than this we live in. At least. SC it seems to me.
 The letter was like voice from the past. I had almost forgotten Julian Eearies. Three years b,fore he had sud- denly seemed to drop out of existence. We knew that he was not dead. but he might as well have been for all he was to the world, or the world to him. men cali a area%er % Me rs reaS %as strange w books, full of occult knowledge and mys- tsrious speculation. Men said he was mad from over-study; that he had sought to pry into the unknowable. and the un. fathomable mysteries that met him on every hand were more than his brain
 He had but one intimate friend, John Fordyce was. like himself. dreamer: They had been in college together. and after graduation, they had kept up their study of strange books and stranger eisty than their own. We saw but little of them. When we did see them. 1t seemed as if we hardly met men like ourselves. because their life and habits ns aloofness that kekpt us at distance. They always gave me the impression Of being. in the world. but not of it. Bye and bye we heard that Julian Ian Searles had gone abroad to pursue his strange studies at a university where men seemed to gain a wisdom that all world to those who were anxious to know what was beyond them before death turned the key. Then we heard, after 8 time, that his friend was likely to die, nA hat l,n hod hnan IY1r I remembered, as I sat with Julian Searles' letter In my hand, how 1t had been reported that John Fordyce was his friends arrival. And then came back to me vividly the strange disappearance of the dead mans body. In night Of wind and rain it had been stolen from the room in which 1t had been placed. awaiting burial. and though long and diiigent search had been made by those whose business in life it Is to discover crime and make clear dark transactions. no trace of 1t had ever been discovered;
 From that time on the world seemed to have lost track of Julian Searles. He was as nearly forgotten by nine out of ten who had known him as the man whose body had so mystcriously disap- peared.
 When I rang the bell at the Searles residence the next day, 1 was admitted by an old man who had grown gray in the service of the family. l remem- bered him but he had forgotten me:
 You are the lawyer. l suppose"' he said.
 Come with me-" and he led the way up two long flight Of stairs "He IS
 lie tapped at door at the end of
 Come in." said voice. faintly.
 Its the lawyer, sir the old man an-
 Very well; show him n. When I ring I want you and the housekeeper to come"
 leaving me alone with man who seemed but shadow of the Julian Searles had known years before.
 The word. shadow exactly expresses the impression that the sight of the man in the chair before the fire gave me. l had never seen another living creature so thin, so frail. So blooaless. But out looked a pair of eyes that startled me with their strange expression. They seemed like the eyes of haunted man --eyes that saw that which was invisible to me.
 He motioned me to chair, and I sat SI am giaa you have come" he said The end may come at any time. The end?-no, no! the beginning of eternity" He shivered as fe spoke, and his eyes appeared to darken with a nameless fear. He seemed to have forgotten my pres- ence. He was talking with himself.
 A moment of embarrassing silence en- sued. l rnovedS hoping to bring him back to the world we were in. He heard the movement and seemed to wake up to the fact that I was there. and to recall, with an effort. the reason of my pres -ence.
 "Pardoi me" he said. T am not used to visitors, and treat them with scant courtesy. Are yod ready"
 Quite ready" l replied, and spread nd nd tf1lr ."I have been thinking. for some time back, what l wanted done with my prop erty, after l am dead, he said, in voice that sounded weak and far away. Prom time to time I made memoranda of the decisions l arrived at relative to its disposal. You will find them on the desk there numbered in the order the will You understand how to put them in legal phraseology? When you have done so. will listen to what you haV0 Written.
 I found the memoranda to which he referred. and fell to work Occasionally. as l wrote, l glanced at him. He seemed to have forgotten my presence again. In those strange eyes there was a look of far-offncss that gave me a sense of separation from him that made us seem worlds apart. An uncanny face of a man dead. but unburied, came to me- waa glad, each time, to turn to my work again, but over and over the fasci- nation of the face before the fire would draw my eyes away rom the page on which l was writing.
 T have disposed of all the material with which you provided me-" 1 said. bye and bye. Shall l read to you what have wrltten?''
 He reused up, at the sound of my voice, and signified, by a motion of his hand, that I was to do so. And then
 1 read to him the last will and testa- ment of Julian Searles.
 T think it's all right" he said. Tt sounds so, at least. If any one attempts your own work. Will you ring the bell. please?'
 l uId as requested and presently the old man who had let me in appeared, &C., companied by an elderly lady whom l took to be the housekeeper.
 'I have made my will" he said to them. "I want you to witness it." He took the pen from my hand, and wrote his name In trembling and almost illegible char
 Tell them What to do. he said feebly, as If the effort of aftixing his name to the document had almost exhausted him.
 instructed then as to what was re- quired of them. and they witnessed the document.
 Thank you--you can go now" he said. and they withdrew. seeming glad to get away.
 q have something more to say to you" he said. T may not see you again. ln- deed, I am sure I shall not The thread of life will snap suddenly, and soon. I have a paper here that l want you to take with you. Keep 1t, and when you hear I am dead. read it. Read 1t at once, and then come here to verify the truth of it. I dare not de without mak- ing confession of a sin so great that