Tombstone epitaph., 1917-07-08

the others noticed x, but it is my bud. ness to take in even inconsiderable de tails. The pen was still between his fingers. His hand was constricted and the pen had not dropped out-in fact, l myself took 1t out and laid 1t on the desk"
 "His last conscious act was to write something. therefore" "Yes; for confirmation l ascertained 1 that there were ink-stains on his fin- gers"
 "what did he write and to whomr
 T don't know. cnn only guess" "what do you guessr "The assumption of entire responsi. bility and the exculpation of his son, probably to some paper"
 Prom the same motives that prompted BertT
 "No. because 1t was true. But that Is only an assumption. although not al. together without further evidence"
 And what is that7" asked the wom. an eagerly.
 She had sat down opposite Rodney at the table and was leaning toward him. Her color came and went. her breathing was rapid and strained un. der the wild beating of her heart.
 'The blotter on the desk. exam. ined 1t at my leisure. It had been used some time. I went over it with a magnifying glass. Meade. Sr., had evi. dently written a letter. I found the words fault Is mine.' have the blot. barely decipherable. is can be made out with difficulty. but mine Is quite plain. I am familiar with the older Meade's handwriting, and though this is weaker and feebler and more irregu- lar than was his custom-ordinarily he wrote a bold. free hand-this Is uu mistakably his. Of course DO one can say that he wrote any letter. This is piling assumption upon assumption. and, furthermore. there Is no evidence of any signature having been written beneath it."
 "Is that allT
 There is one more Dit of evidence The sheet of paper on which the de sign computations for the compression chord members appear was not with the other plans and tracings of the bridge"
 ''How do you knowr
 'These plans were taken over by the Martlet company after Meade'a death. and Mir. Curtiss and examined hot
 'It's wonderfulI r cried the girl, her eyes shining 'I was convinced be- fore, but. if had not been. you would have persuaded me beyond a doubt
 'I have persuaded myself, too," said Rodney. But there is not a single thing here that would justify any pub- licity. even If we were prepared to go against Meade's obvious desire. As ] say, 1t Is all assumption. No one could prove it."
 You are wrong." said the girl. "Shurtliff."
 'T wondered if that would occur to you"
 "Of course You think that Meade. ST.. wrote a letter assuming the blame because 1t was his. have no doubt in the world now that Bertram Meade had made his protest in writing. Per. haps he indorsed it on the missing sheet" continued the woman, making bold and brilliant guesses. "Or maybe he wrote letter that was attachet. to the sheet that we lack, and MT. Meade got It out of the safe and wrote his letter and attached tt with Bertram's protest to the missing draw ing and gave them to Shurtliff and told him to take them to the papers. You know Shurtliff said that Meade de- clared he would assume the blame and he told the reporters so. Shurtliff has, or he knows who has, the missing pa- per-"
 "But what motive would the secre- tary have for such concealment?
 He idolized the older Meade. Mfr. Curtiss told me about him A failure