"As you choose," he responded, and then from the waiter, who had meanwhile appeared, ordered brandy. While he waited for his drink he drummed idly on the table and I leaned on the mantel striving to imitate his imperturbability. My sympathy, my affection for Littell for the time were gone, and it was a hard and unyielding man who faced him waiting for the moment to speak. When the brandy was brought, Littell swallowed a glass of it and, having done so, himself deliberately closed the door again behind the waiter, so that we should be alone. Then standing with his back to it, he looked at me and I at him. We understood each other. "What have you to say to me?" he asked. There were no signs of flinching on his part. I walked over to him. "That you killed Arthur White," I said. He took a step towards me and I steadied myself for what might be coming, but he changed his purpose, whatever it was, and turned away with a laugh. "You are mad," he said. "I have spoken the truth," I answered sternly, "and you know it." "Your proof!" he demanded. "It is here," I said, and I held out to him Miles's report; "you may have it; it will show you that you have no chance." He seemed to deliberate and then slowly, hesitatingly, like a man making up his mind to something, he reached out and took the report from me, and in the act our hands met and at the touch his face flushed, but mine grew pale and I wavered. Suddenly he extended his hand to me and I took it. "It is all right, Dick," he said, but my head was bent and I did not answer, and when I looked up he was gone. I never saw him again, but the next morning's mail brought me this letter from him: THE LAST LETTER "You are right; your dogged persistence has at last accomplished its purpose and my end, and to what good? White is dead, Winters is dead, and I shall be within a few hours. The tragedy has worked itself out. I do not know that I am sorry the game is played,--life's game it has proven with me; neither do I reproach you for your part in it. I might have lived a few years longer, but I am not sure that I wish to. My life has lasted sixty years, and they have not been so free from trouble that I should crave a few more waning ones. The world owes me little, and I owe it less; let us separate while we are at peace. "I should wish, if you can find it consistent with that importunate conscience of yours, that you would leave my memory as it now abides with my friends, pleasantly, likely, and not overburdensome. I would not ask even this, but all I take with me, or leave behind, is the good-will of a few men, and I would as soon as it were not too rudely ended. "To you I am a murderer: not a pleasant word for a man to use about himself; but the truth, nevertheless. I have not always agreed with other men, and I do not in this, but such would be their verdict and I recognize it.