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“You see,” he said; “you can’t.” His hand fell on my arm. “I’m sorry, Chris,” he said in that winning voice of his; “I shouldn’t plague you for something that you can’t give me.”

“I can tell you this, anyway,” said I: “that it’s something less than courage to give up until the time comes. You didn’t give your life. You haven’t the right to take it; anyway, not until its last usefulness is over.”

He made a movement of impatience.

“Oh, I’m not asking you to endure torture. I’d release you myself from that, if it comes to it, in spite of man-made laws. But how can you tell that being alive instead of dead next week or next month may not make an eternal difference to some other life? Your part isn’t played out yet. Who are you to say how much good you may yet do before the curtain is rung down?”

“Or how much evil! Well, as a suitable finish, suppose I go down into that garden and kill Ely Crouch,” he suggested, smiling. “That would be a beneficial enough act to entitle me to a prompt and peaceful death, wouldn’t it?”

“Theoretically sound, but unfortunately impracticable,” I answered, relieved at his change of tone.

“I suppose it is.” He looked at me, still smiling, but intent. “Chris, what do you believe comes after?”

“Justice.”

“A hard word for cowards. What do I believe, I wonder? At any rate, in being sport enough to play the game through. You’re right, old hard-shell. I’ll stick it out. It will only mean spending this”–he swept the money back into its repository–“a little more slowly.”

“I was sure I could count on you,” I said. “Now I can give you the talisman.” I set on the desk before him a small pasteboard box. “Pay strict attention. You see that label? That’s to remind you. One tablet if you can’t sleep.”

“I couldn’t last night.”

“Two if the pain becomes more than you can stand.”

He nodded.

“But three at one time and you’ll sleep so sound that nothing will ever awaken you.”

“Good old Chris!” Opening the box, he fingered the pellets curiously. “A blessed thing, your science! Three and the sure sleep.”

“On trust, Ned.”

“On honor,” he agreed. “Then I mustn’t expunge old Crouch? It’s a disappointment,” he added gayly.

He pushed the box away from him and crossed over to the upper window. His voice came to me from behind the enshrouding curtains.

“Our friend has finished his promenade. The air is the sweeter for it. I’ll stay here and breathe it.”

“Good!” said I. “I’ve five minutes of telephoning to do. Then I’ll be back.”

Nobody can ever tell me again that there’s an instinct which feels the presence of persons unseen. On my way to the door I passed within arm’s-length of a creature tense and pulsating with the most desperate emotions. I could have stretched out a hand and touched her as she crouched, hidden in the embrasure of the lower window. It would seem as if the whole atmosphere of the room must have been surcharged with the terrific passion of her newborn and dreadful hopes. And I felt–nothing. No sense, as I brushed by, of the tragic and concentrated force of will which nerved and restrained her. I went on, and out unconscious. Afterward she was unable to tell me how long she had been there. It must have been for some minutes, for what roused her from her stupor of terror was the word “Suicide.” It was like an echo, a mockery to her, at first; and then, as she listened with passionate attention to what followed, my instructions about the poison took on the voice of a ministering providence. The draperies had shut off the view of Ned, nor had she recognized his voice, already altered by the encroachments of the disease. But she heard him walk to the upper window, and saw me pass on my way to the telephone, and knew that the moment had come. From what she told me later, and from that to which I was a mazed witness on my return, I piece together the events which so swiftly followed.