Louis Ravengar will breathe again, thankful
that typhoid fever has relieved him of an unpleasant incubus, and since
Camilla is underground, he will speedily forget all about her. She will
be absolutely safe from him. The inconsolable widower will
ostentatiously seek distraction in foreign travel, and in a fortnight,
at most, will, under another name, resume his connubial career in a
certain villa unsurpassed, I am told, for its picturesque situation.
To-morrow or the next day I must make that new will, dispensing with the
shutting-up of the flat. The secret instructions, however, will stand.
You may wonder why I confide all this to the phonograph, Polycarp. I
will tell you. The record will be placed by me to-morrow in my safe in
your vault. To-night I shall lock it up in the safe here. When I am
dead, Polycarp, you will find that the secret instructions instruct you
to realize all my estate, and to keep the proceeds in negotiable form
until a lady named Mrs. Catherine Pounds, a widow, comes to you with an
autograph letter from me. You will hand everything to that lady, or to
her representative, without any further inquiry. But it has struck me
this very day, Polycarp, that you, with your confounded suspicious and
legal nature, when you see Mrs.
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