“And you brought me here!” he cried. “You meant me to see this! You do
believe!”
“No,” I maintained. “I do not believe.”
V
After I waved a farewell to him from the pier I never saw him again.
We had an extensive correspondence six months later when he wanted his
annuity exchanged for a joint-life annuity for himself and his bride.
I arranged it for him with less difficulty than I had anticipated. His
letter of thanks, explaining that a French wife was so great an economy
that the shrinkage in his income was more than made up for, was the
last I heard from him.
As he died more than a year ago and his widow is already married, this
story can do him no harm. If the Eversleighs were defrauded they will
never feel it and my conscience, at least, gives me no twinges.
1909