"Oh, I didn't really think it--don't know why I said it."

"He was sick only a few days, and the strangest thing has come to
light! He seemed to know before he was taken sick that he was going to
die, and he spent nearly a whole day in writing--writing something for
me--and the strangest thing has come to light. I can hardly realize
it. Here it is; read it. Don't say a word till you have read every
line of it. Strangest thing I ever heard of."

And this is what DeGolyer read by the light of the sputtering lamp:

"Years ago there lived in Salem, Mass., two brothers, George and
Andrew Witherspoon. Their parents had passed away when the boys were
quite young, but the youngsters had managed to get a fair start in
life. Without ado let me say that I am Andrew Witherspoon. My brother
and I were of different temperaments. He had graces of mind, but was
essentially a business man. I prided myself that I was born to be a
thinker. I worshiped Emerson. I know now that a man who would
willingly become a thinker is a fool. When I was twenty-three--and
George nearly twenty-one--I fell in love with Caroline Springer. There
was just enough of poetry in my nature to throw me into a devotion
that was almost wild in its intensity, and after my first meeting with
her I knew no peace. The chill of fear and the fever of confidence
came alternating day by day, and months passed ere I had the strength
of nerve to declare myself; but at last the opportunity and the
courage came together. I was accepted. She said that if I had great
love her love might be measured by my own, and that if I did not think
that I could love her always she would go away and end her days in
grief. The wedding day was appointed. But when I went to claim my
bride she was gone--gone with my brother George. To-day, an old man, I