Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1912-02-29

with almost maniacal strength he
shook us off and, with finger still
pointing to the yellow scrap I had let
fall to the floor, he managed to gasp:
"That yellow letter. Where did"
Before he could finish the sentence
he fell stricken to the floor, his voice
choking, his eyes glazing, paralyzed
by some hidden terror-we knew not
what.
CHAPTER II.
Louise and I sat at dinner together.
Isn't it strange in this world of ours
how the commonplace follows on the
terrible, how the usual and the un-
usual intermingle, how the clock ticks
on when the whole universe seems to
be tumbling about our heads! In one
of the rooms upstairs lay Katherine,
still unconscious, with doctor and a
nurse constantly at her side. The bul-
let had been removed, and while 1t
had penetrated the brain some slight
distance, Doctor Wilcox said there
was just chance-the barest chance
that she might recover. 1t might,
however, be hours, he explained, be-
fore she regained consciousness IT
she ever did.
In another of the rooms lay General
Parrish. more dead than alive.
Paralysis had deadened his limbs and
tied his tongue Only his eyes seemed
alert. Most of the time since the
stroke had felled him he had been
Aumberingly heavily, not, with the
sleep of health or>weariness, but with
the coma of disease. In the moments
when he was awake and seemed con-
scious his eyes still had the look Of
terror that we had seen just before he
was stricken. Coupled with this. look
Of fear was an indefinable expression
of entreaty, as If there was something
he would ask and could not. Anxious
as Louise and I were to learn what 1t
was that was troubling him, the
doctor forbade our making any effort
to do so, and made us leave the room,
where he had put second nurse in
charge.
While the hustle of caring for the
two stricken ones lasted there was
little time for thought, and was glad
for the activity that kept Louise's
mind distracted. Just at the moment
when it seemed that everything had
been done and there was nothing left
but the anxious waiting-waiting for
the worst-the butler had tiptoed in
to summon us to dinner. Bravely, at
first, Louise and I made pretense of
eating, each trying to encourage the
other, but the unforgetable events Of
the afternoon. the missing faces az
the table and the sorrow that filled us
both made food impossible. Drawing
our chairs together, we discussed in
whispers the battling mystery Of
katherine's attempted suicide and her
fathers strange terror.
On the table before US lay the scrap
of yellow paper, the sight of which had
go agitated General Parrish. AS soon
as he had been carried into his own
rooms I had fastened to rescue 1t
from the floor I felt that, insignificant
as it appeared, it must have some i'm
portant connection with the events Of
I, the afternoon. Yet as Louise and l
puzzled over it, there seemed nothing
sinister in the fragments Of sentences
that the flames had left all but 'unde-
cipherab1e.
The paper, of peculiarly yellowish
tint, was hardly more than two square
ter On it we could make out these
words: ~
| ba + .-
used Sc
sister t
seemed inevita - a'"
and disgrace ah te
by accident lie "., a
make good
| AS we studied the bit of type-writ.
ing, word by word, we tried to trace
in it some hidden meaning. some
sinister warning, something or any.
thing that would connect it with poor
Katherine's mental distress and her
fathers poignant terror. That the let
ter of which this was a part had been
in Katherine's possession was evident
from the place where had picked up
the fragment. 1t was equally certain
that it had been her purpose to
destroy it. On the other hand, General
Parrish, too, must have known Of the
existence of this Letter, else why did
he show such terror at the mere
sight of a scrap of it? 1t must have
been part of some document that had
made a vivid impression on his mind.
More than likely, we felt, whatever
the letter was, 1t had played some part
in the quarrel between Katherine and
her father the afternoon before she
dismissed Hugh Cra~ dali.
We ran over all the words we could
think of that begin "be-a,'' trying to fit
one to the phrases following *,
bar, ban, bank, bankruptcy, basin bar
rel, barren, battle-there were zoo
many of them. We gave 1t up and
passed on the next phrase, used
Sc" 1t proved equally puzzling. We
could make nothing out of 1t, but the
third line at least was definite enough
for discussion.
"a sister" said Louise. THAT
makes it certain that this letter did
not apply in any way to father, for he
never had a sister He was an only
child"
I was not so positive as she that
the letter did not apply to the general.
The thought came to me that perhaps
ever in the proud Parrish family there
might have been some girl child of I'M
blessed birth whose existence had
been kept secret from Louise. Per