As sweet oil may clog an exquisite piece of machinery, so did a woman destroy in Kensington that which might have revealed all the mysteries of the universe

 DRAB, remorseless kind of day, with the wind whipping the trees into shuddering phantoms against a leaden sky to the accompaniment of a subdued staccato of rain tinkling from the window and the damp reek of sodden leaves seeping into the room.

      I had come to view an apartment that I contemplated renting. The rooms were good, the lighting excellent, but the dull light of the storm-filled sky, the bare walls, the dusty paneling, all combined to produce an impression of gloom that my common sense refused to dispel. One chair, abandoned by the former occupants, enhanced the forlornness of the place, a padded desk chair, patterned with scratches and old and worn, but human with use.

      I strayed into one of the bedrooms and opened a closet door. In one corner lay a heap of old newspapers. I poked them with my stick.

      Then I came upon something that was not newspapers, and dragged it into the light. It appeared to be a fragment of an irregular diary; I turned over the pages and observed entries of varying length and appearance. Curiosity overcoming a latent protesting of honor I dragged the chair to the window, sat down and began to read. The manuscript began abruptly; the front pages had been torn away. The entries were separated, but not dated, and ran as follows.

 

      "—– newest phase of the subject puzzles me greatly. That the mind and soul are inseparable has long been clear to me, but I had never realized that they, or rather it, could be released and persist as a coexistent entity, separate from the body. I must investigate further.

*       *       *       *       *       *      *

      "Blynn and I had a long talk to-night and I tried to interest him in the recent discoveries that had so excited me. He came in with a gust of cool night air, and the long stride that I envy and admire and sometimes think I hate. He tossed off hat and coat and lit a cigarette and began one of those dreadful tuneless things on the piano that are merely rhythmic noise.

      "I am at a loss to know, sometimes, why I stay with him. I explained what I had found — how the proving of it would be a stride in modern psychology to which previous advance would be like the aimless toddlings of a young kitten. He received it all in silence, made an exclamatory noise at the end, and after a polite question or two — prompted, I am sure, by nothing but affection for me — puffed on profoundly at his cigarette. Then he turned rather guiltily to the sporting section, the perusal of which I had interrupted.

      "Perhaps it is as well that we are so utterly different. He brings me down to earth with refreshing regularity and is very kind; I have a feeling that my own precarious existence is dependent on him, that my faint vitality is but a flickering, pallid shadow of his splendid strength. The last time I tried to go out and fell and he helped me home, it seemed to me that all the small power I possessed lay in the tense arms that held me.

      "Oh, that a body like that should not be doing! With half that elastic vitality I could move — yes, and influence the world. Think of a freed, intelligent mind, capable of almost instant projection into space — distance annihilated — the very universe opened — and all the blazing mysteries of the stars brought near.

      "But always there is exhaustion, illness, long white nights of anguish; and fear that time will not be given me to complete my work.

*       *       *       *       *       *      *

      "It is months since I have written; it seemed that I would never write again. I had completed my experimenting and made sure of the thing that I was after; all that remained was the stupendous test of the perfected theory — the projection of the personality, or soul. But then came fever, a gray, misty time, with Blynn's face appearing out of red clouds of delirium. I am tactfully informed that another such attack will end things.

      "If I could be only really well, for a whole week! I think I almost loathed Blynn yesterday. I had been working. He came in late, in one of his playful moods and stretched out on the couch, a big contented animal fairly radiating vitality. Presently he began to talk about the girl that he is interested in, whom he has mentioned occasionally. He is going to bring her here, to see me. She is very beautiful, he tells me. I mentioned again what I have been doing, this time with some effect.

      "'Do you really mean that you can turn the mind loose and let it go running 'round the world while you are asleep?' he demanded.

      "'Roughly, yes,' I replied.

      "'And it can go outside the world, into space?'

      "'Yes.'

      "'Well, why don't you go?'

      "I tried to explain that, while the act of freeing the personality was perfectly possible to me, to send it forth required a dynamic force of physical well-being that I lacked.

      "Then he demanded that I should 'send' him. I could not tell him that it demanded a mind sensitive and delicate, unbound, as far as possible, by earthly ties, an intellect keen, tempered, awake — an instrument as perfect as his body. I merely said that it would not do.

      "'Well,' he remarked, 'it's too bad we can't combine things.'

      "I did not think about it at the time, but later the full portent of what he said flooded quite suddenly into my mind; I sought to banish the idea, but an insidious small voice whispered, 'With his body and your mind; you could accomplish anything! You could free your own self. With that immense reserve of strength you could traverse space. The mystery of gravitation, the secret of the atoms, nothing would be closed to you. Among men you would be a mental king. Your achievement would be limitless with your three elements of perfection — your unsurpassed mind, no longer hampered by illness; the fine body to house it, and your own great secret — the release of the personality. Greatness; power; honor —–'

      "I have tried not to listen. It is absurd, all that.

*       *       *       *       *       *      *

      "Blynn brought the girl to the apartment yesterday. I did not want to see her — I knew the sudden concealed light of pity that would flash into her eyes at sight of my deformity.

      "But when she began to speak, I was speechless. A mind—brilliant, volatile; a quaint fancy of phrase — sparkling out in sunny humor. And then her chance remarks — a light familiar touch with literature and art, an exquisite appreciation of beauty! Blynn left us for an hour or two. Her tender look of pity never quite vanished; wonder, too, shone in her eyes. We talked of books and of music and of all the fine things that made life something besides one long pain to me. Her love of perfection revealed to me unconsciously the solution of a growing mystery — her attachment for Blynn. His sheer beauty drew her; the balanced strength of his poised shoulders, the fineness of his face.

      "I wondered if she felt the lack of common ground. We were disagreeing over Blake.

      "'What does Blynn think about it?' I ventured.

      "She smiled whimsically. 'Oh, Blynn — he'd stare like an old owl if I asked him, and mutter "rot" and want me to sing "The Rosary" for him.'

      "For an instant I caught a grave, an almost fleeting shadow on her face; then the door opened and her eyes danced like flames as Blynn came toward her.

      "'I must fly,' she exclaimed. 'I'll be here again. And you'll tell me more about yourself, won't you, Mr. Kensington, and not let me gabble like a magpie on a pole?'

      "She is very — different. I wonder —–

*       *       *       *       *       *      *

      "I will not do it; it is absurd, wild. Something within me says, 'It is your duty. You can lead humanity high and far. What is one individual to such an end? His mind, his entity is nothing. Take his strength, and go onward to the heights meant for you.'

      "And, of course, if I did, the world would think that it was he who had changed, suddenly, developed; and I, Henry Kensington, the obscure hunchback, would drop mercifully into oblivion.

      "Neither of us have families —–"

 

      Here about a page of the manuscript had been blotted out. I looked around, to be sure that I was still awake. Here, in this very room, had dwelt a genius, perhaps a madman. Certainly the wild screed that I held was not the production of a totally sane mind.

      With my nerves tingling with excitement, I hitched my chair closer to the window and read on. A portion of the censored entry was legible.

 

      "—– fear I know not what! Suppose I should not be able to get back, once I had released myself! Suppose both Blynn's personality and my own lodged in the same body, his or mine? Oh, I am driven, in all this, by something outside myself! I had a frightful dream last night. Blynn stood before me, torn and bloody and naked, and with one dripping finger he wrote on my forehead the word Murderer. The letters burned into the flesh! Then the same voice said, 'You are but fulfilling your destiny. What is one man to the future of the race?' But I fear —–"

      Here occurred a gap of two or three pages in the manuscript; pages filled with strange wavering lines and curves, as if a child had played with the pen.

      Then the writing began again, but startlingly changed. The first hand had been fine, slender, small, with low letters and short loops — the second was powerful, original, eccentric, but seemed to bear a strange resemblance, in spite of this, to the first script. The first sentences were traced with evident care and slowness, but later on the writer had seemingly attained top speed with his pen, as he got fairly back into the inditing of his strange tale.

 

      "I hardly know how to begin the writing of what I must set down — yes, must, because my spirit will not let me rest until all is plain before me, just as it happened. Perhaps I can face my future better if this thing is clear.

      "As I write I look down and see Blynn's hand tracing the letters across the page — and I feel that it must be all a mad dream and that I will soon awake — again in the hospital. I will try to be plain and truthful.

      "Once I was resolved, all was easy. I made the sleeping drug and those other preparations which I may not yet reveal. Blynn came in about six.

      "'Hallo!' he cried, unfolding the evening paper. 'It's a great afternoon — you ought to get out more, Harry; it would do you good.' This was bromidic advice which I would gladly enough have followed had it been possible.

      "'Where have you been?' I asked.

      "'Oh, for a ride in the park. I boxed all morning at the Athletic Club, and felt stuffy inside. The air's bully.'

      "I regarded him in silence. Spring was in the air; one felt the afterglow of warmth and smelled thin, suspended perfumes that heralded the return of the sun to the north. The windows were open. Blynn pulled off coat and vest and settled comfortably, to read the evening paper, one fumbling, bronzed hand groping for matches where his coat pocket should have been.

      "'When,' I said presently, with something of bitterness, 'are you going to do something?' He laughed. 'Why should I?' he replied. 'I don't have to.' He stood up, and stretched his arms wide.

      "It was his words and pose, I think, that determined me. Glorious strength, physical perfection — and utter lack of will, initiative or purpose.

      "He mentioned bringing Marian to the apartment again —–

      "Somehow, I got the powder into his coffee. He raised the cup, then stared across the table at me.

      "'You look so damned queer,' he said. 'What is it?' I muttered something about head. My heart was thumping so that I feared he would hear it. After dinner I chattered on for what seemed ages until, watching, I saw the first signs of the sleep potion. Presently Blynn blinked drowsily.

      "'I guess I'll turn in, Harry,' he said at last. 'Good night.'

      "I waited for half an hour, then went to his bedroom and groped for the light. I knew he would not awaken now. His face was a little flushed and his chest heaving softly with big deep breaths. I went to work at once. Of course it was at first a matter of pure hypnosis; then — which was the greater thing — I must bring into play the directive force. He yielded to hypnosis surprisingly easy.

      "For a long moment I looked down at him, with mingled emotions of resentment, envy, fear — and with the ten-year-old tenderness of warm and intimate friendship tugging at me. 'Blynn,' I whispered, shaking his shoulder. 'Blynn —–'

      "Then, cursing my own weakness, I hurried on with my preparations. I seated myself in a chair and swallowed the sleep potion. I set going, mentally, certain things. Then I felt the customary numbness creep up, up, until I knew myself unable to move.

      "And, too late, came remorse. I saw in one awful moment that I would not only steal Blynn's body, but that I might even annihilate his very soul. I struggled to rouse myself, vainly.

      "When I fully perceived the futility of regret, there came a revulsion of feeling and, quite coldly, I settled my mind to direct. The familiar numbness grew; my last waking consciousness I fixed upon Blynn.

      "I can scarcely describe my waking; it seemed that I floated in an immense void, soundless, sightless, and that gradually, slowly, I drew down, down until my state was the dim awareness that lies between sleep and waking.

      "But first of all, before anything, came a feeling that I had never experienced — as if I were buoyed up by some tremendous force; I felt my very mind tingling with energy and power; my thoughts moved like lightning. Then slowly full consciousness returned and with it the growing sense, immense and unaccountable, of unlimited strength. A glowing, throbbing something coursed through me; I opened my eyes and my gaze encountered the ceiling. I found I was lying flat on my back in bed.

      "'I went to sleep in the chair,' I murmured, and the movements of lips and throat seemed strange to me. 'How could I get in —–'

      "And then came realization of what had occurred. I turned and looked at the chair.

      "Lying asleep, his head back and his hands folded, lay a man in whose broad forehead and sensitive features I recognized — myself, the Kensington that was. Long I gazed — so fixedly that the room grew black and only the sleeping face showed in a whirl of bright stars. The last mists of my deep sleep cleared away and I knew that I had succeeded.

      "I rose from the bed, and looked down at myself, at the long, muscular limbs, at the strong hands that I had known as Blynn's. I moved the right arm, and with the left hand felt with a thrill of exultation the steely elastic muscles gliding under the satiny skin.

      "Suddenly I arose and with long, swift strides moved into the hall and then flashed on the lights in the library. It seemed that I must do something; I couldn't merely rest, quiescent; I raised my hand to my head; a similar movement across the room struck me still. I crossed and stood before the big cheval glass.

      "I looked at myself with all the naïve joy of a child with a new plaything; and then, conscious of a decided effort, I met my own eyes.

      "An indescribable feeling of awe came over me; wonder and fear at what I had done and at what I saw. The eyes, dark, luminous, gray, were Blynn's, yet — I knew it was myself looking out of them.

      "For some time I stored, fascinated, into the eyes in the mirror. A slight sound from Blynn's room aroused me. Hardly knowing why, I slipped into the adjoining room and closed the door — all but a slight crack, through which to listen.

      "In the intense stillness I heard a faint sigh, then a slight stirring and a smothered kind of groan, followed by a sudden movement and the patter of steps down the hall and into the library.

      "Then my heart skipped suddenly, for I heard my own voice, yet the intonation was Blynn's, and terror—terror of something fearful and unearthly—was in its tones.

      "'Good God!' he murmured, over and over. 'What is it — what is it — what is it?'

      "I heard him move across the room to the mirror. Then followed dead silence, finally broken by a low moan and the crash of a falling body.

      "I rushed out and picked him up, then drew back before the terror, almost the insanity, stamped upon the unconscious face. I carried him into his own room, procured water, and bathed his forehead and temples. I was quite calm, and awaited with intense curiosity the awakening of this hybrid, pitiful creature. Presently his eyes opened, and as soon as their gaze encountered my face he screamed and covered his face with his hands. I gently drew them down.

      "'It's all right, Blynn,' I said quietly, and at the sound of Blynn's low voice from my own lips I started. 'It's all right.'

      "'What —–' he muttered hoarsely. 'For God's sake, what —–'

      "I stopped him and quietly, simply, told him what had occurred. It is useless to recount the scene that followed. He cursed me in a high, dreadful voice; he struggled, but I held him as a child might hold a puppy. He threatened, quite absurdly, to call in the police, until I showed him that they would merely carry him to the nearest insane asylum. At last he lay silent, panting. I turned to go, and he seized my hand.

      "'Will it be — always?'

      "The utter despair, the oldness of his tone cut me, and I bent toward him quickly. 'No,' I replied. I did not know if I spoke the truth but I hated the sight of suffering. 'Just until I can do this great thing that I am trying for. I shall try to release the personality to-night. Don't you see, Blynn, that you are helping, too; that the triumph will be for us both?'

      "He was still silent. I watched him, with queer thoughts mingling in my mind — watched myself lying there in the half light of dawn. Infinite pity of him came to me, a strange feeling, partly sorrow for my friend with a fate more fathomless than death, partly sadness for myself as the rightful inhabitant of so poor a dwelling, with its pain and illness, its weakness and suffering.

      "I turned and went out, closing the door and locking it after me. Hearing nothing, I threw myself down in one of Blynn's big chairs and quite unconsciously found myself lighting one of his cigarettes. This opened a whole new train of thought — as to what extent Blynn's personal habits had remained with his body. I lit the cigarette and enjoyed the novel sensation of smoking.

      "The more I thought about what had happened the more amazed I became at my own apparent coldness. I had idolized Blynn from of old, and yet I could see him endure all the agonies of mind that he had suffered a few moments since with no stronger emotion than pity and something very like disgust. Could it be, I thought to myself, that I had cared for nothing but his superficial charm, his boyish cleanness and superb strength, and that the real entity, the real soul of the man, was so negligible that now, no longer incased in a vessel of bronze and alabaster, its feeble rays were quite obscure?

      "Once more I stood before myself in the mirror, and there was no vanity in my frank admiration of the even, handsome features, the deep gray eyes, the superb, towering physique reflected back at me. I stretched myself to my full height and laughed aloud in pure joy at the splendid wealth of strength within me — I who had never known a well day in my life.

      "I turned to my work, and began to write. My thoughts fairly flew. I wrote steadily until I was roused by Gram's announcement of breakfast. I perceived that the dawn had deepened into broad day and heard eight booming from the clock in the dining room.

      "I heard, too, the knob of Blynn's door rattle.

      "Gram looked at me inquiringly. He was coming out of the dining room, and stopped at the sound.

      "'Mr. Kensington, sir; he seems to be in your room, sir. Shall I —–'

      "'No. I —–' I hesitated. 'Gram, come here.' I lowered my voice. 'Mr. Kensington has had a bad attack of headache, Gram, and —–' I tapped my forehead.

      "'Oh, sir,' with a troubled glance toward the door.

      "'Yes, and I am going to keep an eye on him to-day. You know he suffers a great deal and is often beside himself with pain.' God knows I spoke the truth. 'Get a tray and I'll take his breakfast in to him myself.'

      "But he refused to touch food, and when I looked in again he had fallen asleep.

      "All morning I worked. It is now five in the evening. I wrote till noon; and after lunch I went out for a long walk, wandering I knew not where. I remember getting outside of town and climbing tall hills; and once, as panting from a run down a wooded path I stooped over a spring, my image startled me. For the first time in my life I moved and exercised for the pure love of it and again and again drove the blood pounding into my temples in a sudden burst of speed.

      "To-night I am going to perform the great experiment. There is something sublime and, to me, a little terrifying in what I contemplate. Perhaps, after all, this thing — such power — almost omniscience — was never meant for man. Well, I shall try at least. My hand — Blynn's hand — is tired from this long writing. I wonder what I will have to tell, of wonder and of mystery, when I take up the pen again."

 

      Here followed several pages almost illegible, written and crossed out, that I turned over hastily. My eye caught at a word or phrase here and there; I saw "sin," and again "utterly beyond my control" and one whole sentence — "Paganism, with its stimulation of the sense, is essentially the creed of youth and strength and selfishness." Then more erasures, and finally the writing trailed out of what seemed to have been a philosophical quagmire, and became legible. It appeared to me that I could detect certain changes in it; the strokes were less crisp, and the style had lost something of its eccentric beauty.

      The writing continued as given below.

 

      "—– and though I have done nothing wrong, in the actual sense of the word, I have been weak, miserably weak! Oh, that I might have gone on that night! A fortnight ago? It seems years. But would that I had gone on and tried my great undertaking!

      "When the note came, I was puzzled; then I remembered — a bright afternoon earlier in the year and the girl whom Blynn had brought up to the apartment. I remembered how beautiful she was and how well she had talked; but most of all I remembered how her eyes had lighted when Blynn came into the room. The note is before me. It ends:

      "At first I merely smiled and read the note over several times. Then the thought came to me:, why shouldn't I go? She would think I was Blynn; I was, to all the world. It would be amusing, novel. I could try the great experiment the next night. So I slipped into Blynn's coat and went out, taking the address from the heading of the note paper.

      "I had to be very careful, I thought, for I feared, with great absurdity, that she, that every one, would know what had happened. I was admitted by a maid, who grinned in recognition, twitched stick, hat, and coat from me, and murmured, 'Miss Mah'n'll be raht down, suh.'

      "I strolled about, examining the pictures and came to an abrupt halt before an exquisite Whistler etching. I heard a light step and turning saw Marian crossing the room with both hands held out to me.

      "'Well, truant,' she exclaimed, 'what have you to say for —–' She stopped abruptly, looking straight into my eyes. I had taken the outstretched hands and still held them. I felt the blood mounting to my forehead.

      "'What is it?' I managed.

      "'Why — nothing — but — I guess —–' She seemed entirely bewildered, then laughed and hooking an arm through mine drew me into another room where a log fire blazed up and threw dancing shadows upon a dark wainscoating — a fire purely decorative, for the stamp of spring was in the air.

      "'You looked so very solemn,' she said. 'And why were you inspecting that Whistler — with the sporting section all laid out and ready?'

      "The evening sped. Several times I caught a puzzled expression on her face, and checked myself once, with a confused reference to the benign influence of 'Kensington,' in the midst of a heated dissertation upon George Moore.

      "And when, after midnight, I arose to go, she walked to the door with me, one hand clasped in mine in such a way as to pull my arm over her white shoulders. I took my coat and stick and stepped into the dim vestibule, my pulses beating strangely high and a warmth singing through my whole frame. She stood, playing with my hat, refusing to give it up. I seized it, drew it toward me; she followed, still holding on, till she stood close beside me, looking up with shining eyes, her hair a pale cloud of poignant incense —–

      "After that the days, somehow, piled one above the other, so that I did not know what hour was passing. We were together always. The very next afternoon we had a long, long walk, out past the same spring that had startled me with my own face — for I was beginning to think of it as mine — beneath quiet, cool shades where green sunshine filtered through a thin mist of new leaves, tremulous and waxy, and strange dull-white blossoms swayed out from the mold of last year's leaves, and through the air, in a lacy undercurrent of sound, ran the bubblings and contented little murmurings of a thousand glasslike threads of water that wound among the roots and disappeared into the black earth.

      "So the days passed.

      "And Blynn? He was sunk in an apathy of sleep and sullen dreaming, scarce leaving his room, never even trying to stray from the apartment, walking with slow steps about the place. I never glanced up, when home, without a catch of the breath at seeing my own stooped body moving with its accustomed feebleness, but with an infinitesimal something — a movement of the bent shoulders — that suggested the Blynn shut up somewhere within. He scarcely spoke, neither anger nor fear were in him. The first horror, passing, had left a dull listlessness that never disappeared. And then, as the happy, glowing, wonderful days grew into one another, I ceased to notice him, a gray shadow shuffling by in the gloom.

      "My work forgotten — I moved in an exquisite dream. The days vanished and it seemed that a whole lifetime of development and awakening, of adolescence and knowledge, was fused into the shining crucible of their short period.

      "Then — to-night.

      "I walked home through the silence, my footsteps echoing upon the deserted street, the soft warmth of the night wind upon my wrists and forehead.

      "When I reached my room I snatched her picture from the desk and in doing so knocked a pile of papers thudding to the floor. The top sheets sailed off in long graceful curves and settled falconlike to rest upon the rug.

      "I looked from the eyes in the picture to the papers, the manuscript of my book, and suddenly the golden magic of the preceding days dropped from me and I thought of my work, my high purpose, of all that I had forgotten. In a dazed sort of way I set down the picture and collected the papers. As I glanced over the final sentences, it did not appear that I could have written them.

      "With something akin to terror, I resolved now, with no further delay, to carry out my great experiment. I made all preparations.

      "With tremendous effort I concentrated my mind to induce the rigid sleep of self-hypnosis, the first step. Previously a few moments would have sufficed to enable me to get entirely under the influence. Now repeated efforts failed and it was only after work so intense that my whole frame trembled that I felt the old numbness creeping up and knew that I had succeeded; I saw the point of light grow bigger until it seemed to fill all space; once more I had the familiar feeling of drifting, drifting, toward some mental precipice.

      "But — that was all.

      "I tried, with amazement and the first stirrings of fear, to go on to do the delicate, sublime thing that it had been given me to discover — to release the conscious mind once more from the inclosing flesh. But something had happened. Gone the delicate mental poise; gone the clarity of vision and all the tempered keenness of intellect — it was as if an exquisite bit of machinery were clogged and gummed with sweet oil, and responded slowly and heavily, or not at all, to the controller.

      "And yet, maddeningly, I felt the immense, vibrating force, the physical vitality that I had always lacked, working back of me; a vast reservoir of force to send and project and command the roving spirit — Blynn's strength, my stolen glory.

      "What anguish I endured, none know but him to whom all wisdom, the secrets of the stars, have been shown, and denied. For a long, long time I struggled with myself, and when I awoke I felt for the first time since my change, weakness. I staggered to my feet and glimpsed a drawn white countenance in the mirror.

      "I had to write, to quiet myself. I have sat here with the picture's sweet eyes looking at me, with the fragments of my book about me, and thought until I grew sick and afraid of myself — until —–"

 

      Here came upon the page a long splutter of the pen, a blot, and distinctly black upon the page, several thumb prints below the smeared ink.

      Followed the strangest part of all. For the writing continued at once, upon the bottom of the blot. But — it was the writing that had started the manuscript, the same slender, scholar's hand, but traced slowly, with evident effort. My eyes quickly ran over the last pages.

 

      "I have not long left, and it is to this book I turn, now that all is over, as to the sharer of my secret thoughts.

      "In the stillness of the night, as I sat writing, not three hours ago, I heard a faint rattle and jumped aside in time to see a flickering gleam of light and to feel the air hum by my shoulder as a great sword from Blynn's Indian arms collection, hanging upon the wall, bit into the back of the chair where I had been sitting.

      "It was all over and done very soon — I had him by the throat, struggling silently in a last endeavor against me as I snatched the sword away and flung it across the room.

      "Yet in the fierceness of the short contest my mind worked like fire. I saw the impossibility of going on like this, of living in constant watchfulness of the strange, broken nonentity that remained of my former friend. And so, quite deliberately, my fingers tightened, tightened about the throat, until the grip on my sleeve relaxed and the furious arms grew still.

      "Then, awfully, suddenly, blackness rose before me. I fell. Everything went out.

      "With awakening came first a consciousness of weight upon my right arm; then pain, familiar pain, and faintness. I opened my eyes, which turned instinctively toward the weight on my arm. Lying on his side upon it, his hands at his throat as if to loosen his collar, lay the body of him who had been Blynn Anderson. In a sort of dull dream I turned him so that the light fell upon his face as he lay, very tall and still, and as fine and splendid in death as he had been in life. And I knew then how much friend he had been, and how little all else counted, the knowledge and power I sought, the high destiny I had failed in.

      "I know, through a flaming veil of pain, that the last chapter is being written. Even now the darkness draws nearer and nearer about me. The lamp at my desk burns low and smoky and the first dim prescience of day is creeping through the curtain, in pale struggle with its orange gleam. The shadows swim in and out — Blynn, hot-eyed and tall, and Marian — her arms stretched out — to — which of us? My vision is too clouded to see —–"

      A continuous rapping on the door brought me finally to my feet, the manuscript in my hand, and I realized that I had been staring out into the darkness that had fallen I don't know when. At the door stood one of the porters who had shown me up. I thrust the diary behind me.

      He inquired whether I liked the apartment or not. I did not reply at once.

      "Who had it before?" I asked abruptly. The man started and looked up.

      "Er, two gentlemen, sir."

      "Why did they leave?"

      "Why, you see, sir —–" The fellow was obviousy embarrassed, and facial contortions showed the inward fomenting of a lie. I was too excited to brook delay.

      "Come, come," I said. "I know all about it. How long ago did they die?" I was taking a long chance.

      The man glanced shrewdly at me and shrugged his shoulders. I pressed a coin into his gaping hand, and he became voluble.

      "It was very queer, sir, and we don't like to speak of it, sir. But seeing as you knows, anyhow — they was both found dead, sir, of a morning, the big un stretched out on the floor, an' the little chap, Doctor Kensington, all of a heap beside him. They was very good friends, sir."

      "And the cause was —–"

      "Yes, sir. The coroner said as Mr. Anderson had had a sudden attack of heart, sir, and Doctor Kensington, coming in and finding him so, the shock was too much for him, as he was always ailing and was weak-hearted himself, and had been worse and the least bit queer for the last two weeks. So it took him all of a heap, sir."

      I had slowly backed until I came to the chair. The porter had flashed on the lights at his entrance.

      In the back of the chair I saw a deep, clean cut, its edges a firm and white V of wood, pressed back by the force of a terrific blow.

 
[THE END]