n
her face. It was not all acting. Heaven knows how true it was about the
sleep. I was slowly dying of insomnia. I was a nervous wreck. She must
have heard it. Now she saw it for herself.

No; it was by no means all acting. Intending only to lie, I found
myself telling little but the strictest truth, and longing for sleep as
passionately as though I had nothing to keep me awake. And yet, while my
heart cried aloud in spite of me, and my nerves relieved themselves in
this unpremeditated ebullition, I was all the time watching its effect
as closely as though no word of it had been sincere.

Mrs. Braithwaite seemed frightened; not at all pitiful; and as I calmed
down she recovered her courage and became insolent. I had spoilt her
night. She had not been told she was to take in a raving lunatic. She
would speak to Squire Rattray in the morning.

"Morning?" I yelled after her as she went. "Send your husband to the
nearest chemist as soon as it's dawn; send him for chloral, chloroform,
morphia, anything they've got and as much of it as they'll let him have.
I'll give you five pounds if you get me what'll send me to sleep all
to-morrow--and to-morrow night!"

Never, I feel sure, were truth and falsehood more craftily interwoven;
yet I had thought of none of it until the woman was at my door, while of
much I had not thought at all. It had rushed from my heart and from my
lips. And no sooner was I alone than I burst into hysterical tears, only
to stop and compliment myself because they sounded genuine--as though
they were not! Towards morning I took to my bed in a burning fever, and
lay there, now congratulating myself upon it, because when night came
they would all think me so secure; and now weeping because the night
might find me dying or dead. So I tossed, with her note clasped in my
hand underneath the sheets; and beneath my very body that stout weapon
that I had bought in town. I might not have to use it, but I was
fatalist enough to fancy that I should. In the meantime it helped me to
lie still, my thoughts fixed on the night, and the day made easy for me
after all.

If only I could sleep!

About nine o'clock Jane Braithwaite paid me a surly visit; in half an
hour she was back with tea and toast and an altered mien. She not only
lit my fire, but treated me the while to her original tone of almost
fervent civility and respect and determination. Her vagaries soon ceased
to puzzle me: the psychology of Jane Braithwait