n old Alsatian, very
plain-spoken.

"You say so?" he mumbled. "Chut! Then you will go. There are
some--bull-dog, men. They do what they please,--they never die unless
they choose, begar! We know them in our practice, Herr Holmes!"

Holmes laughed. Some acumen there, he thought, in medicine or mind: as
for himself, it was true enough; whatever success he had gained in life
had been by no flush of enthusiasm or hope; a dogged persistence of
"holding on," rather.

A long time; but Christmas eve came at last: bright, still, frosty.
"Whatever he had to do, let it be done quickly;" but not till the set
hour came. So he laid his watch on the table beside him, waiting until
it should mark the time he had chosen: the ruling passion of
self-control as strong in this turn of life's tide as it would be in
its ebb, at the last. The old doctor found him alone in the dreary
room, coming in with the frosty breath of the eager street about him.
A grim, chilling sight enough, as solitary and impenetrable as the
Sphinx. He did not like such faces in this genial and gracious time,
so hurried over his examination. The eye was cool, the pulse steady,
the man's body, battered though it was, strong in its steely composure.
"Ja wohl!--ja wohl!" he went on chuffily, summing up: latent
fever,--the very lips were blue, dry as husks; "he would
go,--oui?--then go!"--with a chuckle. "All right, gluck Zu!" And so
shuffled out. Latent fever? Doubtless, yet hardly from broken bones,
the doctor thought,--with no suspicion of the subtile, intolerable
passion smouldering in every drop of this man's phlegmatic blood.

Evening came at last. He stopped until the cracked bell of the chapel
had done striking the Angelus, and then put on his overcoat, and went
out. Passing down the garden walk a miserable chicken staggered up to
him, chirping a drunken recognition. For a moment, he breathed again
the hot smoke of the mill, remembering how Lois had found him in
Margret's office, not forgetting the cage: chary of this low life, even
in the peril of his own. So, going out on the street, he tested his
own nature by this trifle in his old fashion. "The ruling passion
strong in death," eh? It had not been self-love; something deeper: an
instinct rather than reason. Was he glad to think this of himself? He
looked out more watchful of the face which the coming Christmas bore.
The air was cold and pungent. The crowded city seemed wakening to so