this
creature, shrinking before the sacrilege of destroying its creator,
turned on itself and accomplished a more probable assassination.'

"She stood before me and I was pleased to see her hatred increase. It
was amazingly vivid. I observed the viciousness of her features. Her
face had become contorted. Its fury was like a mask. But she had
dropped the knife. I could not refrain smiling an encouragement at
her--the naive applause an author bestows upon his puppets.

"But the plot still contained surprises. Yes, astonishing denouements
began to crowd the stage. For she started to undress. Here was a trick
that baffled Mallare. I winced with distaste.

"'The consistency which I have hitherto admired in my madness seems
rather dubious.' I thought. 'The melodrama of illusions grows too
improbable. This fine tragedy crumbles into the ludicrous. She forgets
her hate. She is again Rita, the infatuated one. A lightning change that
smacks of inferior vaudeville. She is about to undress and resume her
deplorable assaults upon my idiot senses. A poorly written business. I
have a notion to walk out.'

"But I remained smiling at the absurdity, too tired to leave my chair. I
was pleased to notice that her nudity did not this time appeal to my
doting madness. This marked an improvement--a foretaste of victory. The
disintegration had begun.

"Her body was interesting. It was covered with bruises. There were
stains on its flesh. At the sight of them the lodge brother, the
sniveling one who had followed me home in the snow, set up a veritable
caterwauling. Here was terrible evidence of the fellow's guilt. The
bruises of course. An accomplished penitent, this blubberer, able to
transform himself from a Sense of Homicidal Guilt into a mere feeling of
General Remorse.

"She was not dead. Yet he lingered. And now, at the sight of her
bruises, he rushed forward with inferior regrets. He will bear study,
this weeping one. Of all the sprawling Mallares, he alone lacks logic.
But I will come to him later. The plot is more entertaining than this
incongruous spectator weeping and hissing out of turn.

"She began to talk once more and wildly. The sense of it dawned on me.
She was calling Goliath. He came shuffling from his usual hiding
place--the curtains. A diverting little monster. I bear him no ill will.
Although I grow slightly envious of his madness. Yet his madness is a
terrific flattery. It is involved and piquant and one of the thi