sadventure'"; and she held up a little empty bottle of dark blue glass
that was standing on the desk. "He would take it, and I always knew he
would take a drop too much one of these days."

"What's all those papers that he's got there?"

"Didn't I tell you? It was crool to see him. He got it into 'is 'ead he
could write a book; he's been at it for the last six months. Look 'ere."

She spread the neat pile of manuscript broadcast over the desk, and took
a sheet at haphazard. It was all covered with illegible hopeless
scribblings; only here and there it was possible to recognize a word.

"Why, nobody could read it, if they wanted to."

"It's all like that. He thought it was beautiful. I used to 'ear him
jabbering to himself about it, dreadful nonsense it was he used to talk.
I did my best to tongue him out of it, but it wasn't any good."

"He must have been a bit dotty. He's left you everything."

"Yes."

"You'll have to see about the funeral."

"There'll be the inquest and all that first."

"You've got evidence to show he took the stuff."

"Yes, to be sure I have. The doctor told him he would be certain to do
for himself, and he was found two or three times quite silly in the
streets. They had to drag him away from a house in Halden Road. He was
carrying on dreadful, shaking at the gaite, and calling out it was 'is
'ome and they wouldn't let him in. I heard Dr. Manning myself tell 'im in
this very room that he'd kill 'imself one of these days. Joe! Aren't you
ashamed of yourself. I declare you're quite rude, and it's almost Sunday
too. Bring the light over here, can't you?"

The man took up the blazing paraffin lamp, and set it on the desk, beside
the scattered heap of that terrible manuscript. The flaring light shone
through the dead eyes into the dying brain, and there was a glow within,
as if great furnace doors were opened.

THE END

Other books by Arthur Machen

Novels

The Hill of Dreams
The Great Return
The Terror
The Secret Glory
The Green Round
The Great God Pan
Kings of Horror
The Chronicle of Clemendy
The Great God Pan and The Inmost Light
The Three Imposters
The House of Souls
The Angels of Mons, The Bowmen, and Other Legends of the War
Fantastic Tales or the Way to Attain
The Shining Pyramid
The Glorious Mystery
Ornaments in Jade
The Children of the Pool and Other Stories
The Cosy Room and Other Stories
Holy Terrors
Tales of Horror and the Supernatural
Tales of Horror and