"And how do you account for that phase?" asked Gordon, obviously steadying his voice by an effort of the will. "The apparition always shows up at low water,--the disasters are usually typhoid," replied the physician. "Mr. Keene died from malaria," Geraldine murmured musingly. The two men glanced significantly at each other. Then Rigdon resumed: "I mustered the hardihood on one occasion to row up to the bank of Bogue Holauba for a closer survey. The thing vanished on my approach. There was a snag hard by, fast anchored in the bottom of the Bogue. It played slackly to and fro with the current, but I could not see any way by which it or its shadow could have produced the illusion." "Is this what you had to tell me?" demanded Geraldine pertinently. "I knew all that already." "No, no," replied the Doctor reluctantly. "Will you tell it, Mr. Gordon, or shall I?" "You, by all means, if you will," said Gordon gloomily. "God knows I should be glad never to speak of it." "Well," Rigdon began slowly, "Mr. Gordon was made by his cousin Jasper Keene not only the executor of his will, but the repository of a certain confession, which he may destroy or make public as he sees proper. It seems that in Mr. Keene's gay young days, running wild in his vacation from college on a secluded plantation, he often lacked congenial companionship, and he fell in with an uncouth fellow of a lower social grade, who led him into much detrimental adventure. Among other incidents of very poor fun, the two were notable in hectoring and guying the old Polish trader, who, when drunk on mean whisky as he often was, grew violent and antagonistic. He went very far in his denunciations one fatal night, and by way of playing him a trick in return, they set his boat adrift by cutting the rope that tied the craft to a tree on the bank. The confession states that they supposed the owner was then aboard and would suffer no greater hardship than having to use the sweeps with considerable energy to row her in to a landing again. They were genuinely horrified when he came running down the bank, both arms out-stretched, crying out that his all, _his all_ was floating away on that tumultuous, merciless tide. Before any skiff could be launched, before any effort could be made to reach the trading-boat, she suddenly disappeared. The Mississippi was at flood height, and it was thought that the boat struck some drifting obstruction, swamped, and went down in deep water. The agents in this disaster were never suspected, but as soon as Jasper Keene had come of age, and had command of any means of his own, his first act was to have an exhaustive search made for the old fellow, with a view of financial restitution. But the owner of the trading-boat had died, spending his last years in the futile effort to obtain the insurance money. As the little he had left was never claimed, no representative could profit by the restitution that Jasper Keene had planned, and he found what satisfaction he could