the instrument of justice in the infliction of so well-deserved and so
terrible a punishment. Vengeance may have had some part in his decision,
but he could not help that, for he still felt at times the hot chains
burning his wrists and ankles with fierce agony through to the bone.
He remembered the hideous pain of his slowly roasting back, and the
point when he thought death _must_ intervene to end his suffering, but
instead new powers of endurance had surged up in him, and awful further
stretches of pain had opened up, and unconsciousness seemed farther off
than ever. Then at last the hot irons in his eyes.... It all came back
to him, and caused him to break out in icy perspiration at the mere
thought of it ... the vile face at the panel ... the expression of the
dark face.... His fingers worked. His blood boiled. It was utterly
impossible to keep the idea of vengeance altogether out of his mind.

Several times he was temporarily baulked of his prey. Odd things
happened to stop him when he was on the point of action. The first day,
for instance, the Manager fainted from the heat. Another time when he
had decided to do the deed, the Manager did not come down to the office
at all. And a third time, when his hand was actually in his hip pocket,
he suddenly heard Thorpe's horrid whisper telling him to wait, and
turning, he saw that the head cashier had entered the room noiselessly
without his noticing it. Thorpe evidently knew what he was about, and
did not intend to let the clerk bungle the matter.

He fancied, moreover, that the head cashier was watching him. He was
always meeting him in unexpected corners and places, and the cashier
never seemed to have an adequate excuse for being there. His movements
seemed suddenly of particular interest to others in the office as well,
for clerks were always being sent to ask him unnecessary questions,
and there was apparently a general design to keep him under a sort of
surveillance, so that he was never much alone with the Manager in the
private room where they worked. And once the cashier had even gone so
far as to suggest that he could take his holiday earlier than usual if
he liked, as the work had been very arduous of late and the heat
exceedingly trying.

He noticed, too, that he was sometimes followed by a certain individual
in the streets, a careless-looking sort of man, who never came face to
face with him, or actually ran into him, but who was always in his train
or