ible a degree of pressure
would be required to produce the roaring, shattering shock which should
whirl him into the dark night of Death.

Well, but--afterwards? Who knew? If it were as they taught, even then it
could be no augmentation of the hopelessness of this life. Perhaps they
might make a devil of him, he thought, with grim satisfaction, as a
black wave of hatred towards humanity at large surged through his brain.
In that eventuality his role of tormentor as well as tormented would be
a congenial one.

The dark night of death! What would it matter about money then, and all
the sordid and pitiful wretchednesses entailed by the want of it? A leap
in the dark! It held all the excitement of an unknown adventure to the
man who sat there, pressing the muzzle of the deadly weapon hard against
his forehead. The additional pressure of so much as a hair's weight upon
that trigger now!

Could it be that the man's guardian angel was with him still, that a
saving presence really hovered about him in the prosaic noonday? A
strange chord seemed to thrill and vibrate within his brain, bringing
before his vision the face of Lilith Ormskirk. There it was, as he had
beheld it but a few days since; but now the sweet eyes were troubled, as
though clouded with pain and bitter disappointment.

"You, whom I thought so strong, are weak after all! You, to whom I loved
to listen as the very ideal of a well-balanced mind and judgment, are
about to do what will stamp your memory forever as that of one who was
insane! Have I been no more to you than that--I who thought to have
brightened and strengthened your life all that within me lay? It cannot
be! You shall not do it."

He could not. The voice thrilled to his hearing, as plainly, as
articulately as it had ever done when she had stood before him. He laid
down the weapon, and passed his hand in a dazed sort of manner over his
brows. Laurence Stanninghame was saved.

He stared around, somewhat unsteadily, as though more than half
expecting to behold her there in the room. What did it all mean? At any
rate she had saved him. Was it for good or for ill? Then the full irony
of the position struck upon his satirical soul. His mind went back over
his acquaintance with Lilith. What if his disillusioning had been a
little less complete? What if he had fled the rich attractiveness of her
presence, had shunned her with heroic scrupulousness, acting from some
fiddle-faddle notion of so-called "