do, nor even what he had the power to do. To move to fresh
apartments would have meant delay; altogether I had barely twenty
pounds left in the world, for the most part in a bank--and I
could not afford that. Vanish! It was irresistible. Then there
would be an inquiry, the sacking of my room.

"At the thought of the possibility of my work being exposed or
interrupted at its very climax, I became very angry and active. I
hurried out with my three books of notes, my cheque-book--the tramp
has them now--and directed them from the nearest Post Office to a
house of call for letters and parcels in Great Portland Street. I
tried to go out noiselessly. Coming in, I found my landlord going
quietly upstairs; he had heard the door close, I suppose. You would
have laughed to see him jump aside on the landing as I came tearing
after him. He glared at me as I went by him, and I made the house
quiver with the slamming of my door. I heard him come shuffling up
to my floor, hesitate, and go down. I set to work upon my
preparations forthwith.

"It was all done that evening and night. While I was still sitting
under the sickly, drowsy influence of the drugs that decolourise
blood, there came a repeated knocking at the door. It ceased,
footsteps went away and returned, and the knocking was resumed.
There was an attempt to push something under the door--a blue
paper. Then in a fit of irritation I rose and went and flung the
door wide open. 'Now then?' said I.

"It was my landlord, with a notice of ejectment or something. He
held it out to me, saw something odd about my hands, I expect, and
lifted his eyes to my face.

"For a moment he gaped. Then he gave a sort of inarticulate cry,
dropped candle and writ together, and went blundering down the dark
passage to the stairs. I shut the door, locked it, and went to the
looking-glass. Then I understood his terror.... My face was
white--like white stone.

"But it was all horrible. I had not expected the suffering. A night
of racking anguish, sickness and fainting. I set my teeth, though my
skin was presently afire, all my body afire; but I lay there like
grim death. I understood now how it was the cat had howled until I
chloroformed it. Lucky it was I lived alone and untended in my room.
There were times when I sobbed and groaned and talked. But I stuck
to it.... I became insensible and woke languid in the darkness.

"The pain had passed. I thought I was killing myself and I did not
care.