Hapsburg Liebe

“ Janeson was his name, or assumed name... I’ll see you to-morrow!”
The doctor was gone. Leaf smiled at the great discovery. Then a little, round man in black, all flushed from running up the two stairways, suddenly became framed in the doorway.
“Did you,” he asked kindly, “wish the services of a priest?”
George Leaf’s hand gripped tightly, greedily, wolfishly, a bundle of fourteen bulky envelopes in his right coat pocket. His eyes narrowed.
“Not me.” His voice carried a sneering tone. “The man who wanted you is in twenty-seven, second floor. He’s dead. ”

“ The trouble was, people measured the something wrongly. They measured the infinite by their poor little, puny yardsticks; they judged of God, and thought of God, and feared God, and imagined they loved God, all within their tiny, wormlike standards. ”

“ IT is not every man that has the ability to select the right sort of assumed name. Neither Jones, Smith, nor Brown, nor yet Trevelyan nor Spotswoode, appealed to the Raffles of the Vanishing City. He called himself Leaf—George Leaf. ”

“ Then he addressed fourteen envelopes to fourteen persons, most of whom were women, some of whom were even then guests at the Big Hotel across the avenue. This done, he wrote fourteen short letters, each exactly like the others, confessing everything and imploring, not only forgiveness, but prayers, in his behalf!
The jewels went with the fourteen letters into the fourteen envelopes, exactly where they belonged, and the envelopes were carefully sealed. Leaf felt decidedly better over it. He rose from the table and thrust the heavy letters into his coat pocket. ”

“ Maybe a year, maybe a month, maybe a day; or, perhaps, only ten minutes. Sorry to have to tell you this, Leaf. If you’ve got any peace to make with the hereafter, better be doing it. It’s a serious thing, Leaf, to die.”
“To die;” Leaf muttered to himself, “to die—”
After a moment, he rose unsteadily, seeming broken, and a century old. Janeson, too, went to his feet; he helped Leaf into the clothing he had taken off for the examination.
“Your charges, doctor?”
Janeson waved his hand. “I’m not practicing now. But at home, in Chicago, I get twenty-five dollars for work like this. ”