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Dead Men Tell No Tales | E. W. Hornung | |
Chapter XX The Statement of Francis Rattray |
Page 6 of 7 |
"And now it only remains for me to tell you why I have written all this to you, at such great length, so long after the event. My wife wished it. The fact is that she wants you to think better of me than I deserve; and I - yes - I confess that I should like you not to think quite as ill of me as you must have done all these years. I was villain enough, but do not think I am unpunished. "I am an outlaw from my country. I am morally a transported felon. Only in this no-man's land am I a free man; let me but step across the border and I am worth a little fortune to the man who takes me. And we have had a hard time here, though not so hard as I deserved; and the hardest part of all ... " But you must guess the hardest part: for the letter ended as it began, with sudden talk of his inner life, and tentative inquiry after mine. In its entirety, as I say, I have never shown it to a soul; there was just a little more that I read to my wife (who could not hear enough about his); then I folded up the letter, and even she has never seen the passages to which I allude. |
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Dead Men Tell No Tales E. W. Hornung |
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