id with the certain knowledge in me that I am
a dying man. There is no disguising, Mr. Blake, that you interest me.
I have attempted to make my poor friend's loss of memory the means of
bettering my acquaintance with you. I have speculated on the chance of
your feeling a passing curiosity about what he wanted to say, and of my
being able to satisfy it. Is there no excuse for my intruding myself on
you? Perhaps there is some excuse. A man who has lived as I have lived
has his bitter moments when he ponders over human destiny. You have
youth, health, riches, a place in the world, a prospect before you. You,
and such as you, show me the sunny side of human life, and reconcile me
with the world that I am leaving, before I go. However this talk between
us may end, I shall not forget that you have done me a kindness in doing
that. It rests with you, sir, to say what you proposed saying, or to
wish me good morning."

I had but one answer to make to that appeal. Without a moment's
hesitation I told him the truth, as unreservedly as I have told it in
these pages.

He started to his feet, and looked at me with breathless eagerness as I
approached the leading incident of my story.

"It is certain that I went into the room," I said; "it is certain that
I took the Diamond. I can only meet those two plain facts by declaring
that, do what I might, I did it without my own knowledge----"

Ezra Jennings caught me excitedly by the arm.

"Stop!" he said. "You have suggested more to me than you suppose. Have
you ever been accustomed to the use of opium?"

"I never tasted it in my life."

"Were your nerves out of order, at this time last year? Were you
unusually restless and irritable?"

"Yes."

"Did you sleep badly?"

"Wretchedly. Many nights I never slept at all."

"Was the birthday night an exception? Try, and remember. Did you sleep
well on that one occasion?"

"I do remember! I slept soundly."

He dropped my arm as suddenly as he had taken it--and looked at me with
the air of a man whose mind was relieved of the last doubt that rested
on it.

"This is a marked day in your life, and in mine," he said, gravely.
"I am absolutely certain, Mr. Blake, of one thing--I have got what Mr.
Candy wanted to say to you this morning, in the notes that I took at my
patient's bedside. Wait! that is not all. I am firmly persuaded that I
can prove you to have been unconscious of what you were about, when you
entered the room and took th