n trying to shut it by main
force, Pocket lost his grip of the slimy apparatus, and sent it flying to
the floor, all but the slide which came out bodily in his hand.

"That settles it," remarked Phillida, resignedly. The exposed plate
stared them in the face, a sickly yellow in the broad daylight. It was
cracked across the middle, but almost dry and otherwise uninjured.

"I am sorry!" exclaimed Pocket, as they stood over the blank sheet of
glass and gelatine; it was like looking at a slate from which some
infinitely precious message had been expunged unread. "I'm not sure that
you weren't right after all; what's water-tight must be more or less
light-tight, when you come to think of it. I say, what's all this? The
other side oughtn't to bulge like that!"

He picked the broken plate out of the side that was already open, and
weighed the slide in his hand; it was not heavy enough to contain another
plate, he declared with expert conviction; yet the side which had not been
opened was a slightly bulging but distinctly noticeable convexity. Pocket
opened it at a word from Phillida, and an over-folded packet of MS. leapt
out.

"It's his writing!" cried the girl, with pain and awe in her excitement.
She had dropped the document at once.

"It's in English," said Pocket, picking it up.

"It must be what he was writing all last night!"

"It is."

"You see what it is!" urged Phillida, feebly. But she watched him closely
as he read to himself:--

"_June 20,_190-."

"It is a grim coincidence that I should sit down to reveal the secret of
my latter days on what is supposed to be the shortest night of the year;
for they must come to an end at sunrise, viz., at 3.44 according to the
almanac, and it is already after 10 p.m. Even if I sit at my task till
four I shall have less than six hours in which to do justice to the great
_ambition_ and the crowning folly of my life. I used the underlined word
advisedly; some would substitute 'monomania,' but I protest I am as sane
as they are, fail as I may to demonstrate that fact among so many others
to be dealt with in the very limited time at my disposal. Had I more
time, or the pen of a readier writer, I should feel surer of vindicating
my head if not my heart. But I have been ever deliberate in all things
(excepting, certainly, the supreme folly already mentioned), and I would
be as deliberate over the last words I shall ever write, as in my final
preparations for death