I have worked myself to the limit. But tonight
should be the last night. With a supreme effort I should finish the
final ledger and complete the case before I rise from my chair. I will
do it. I will.

Feb. 7.--I did. My God, what an experience! I hardly know if I am strong
enough yet to set it down.

Let me explain in the first instance that I am writing this in Dr.
Sinclair's private hospital some three weeks after the last entry in my
diary. On the night of January 20 my nervous system finally gave way,
and I remembered nothing afterwards until I found myself three days ago
in this home of rest. And I can rest with a good conscience. My work was
done before I went under. My figures are in the solicitors' hands. The
hunt is over.

And now I must describe that last night. I had sworn to finish my work,
and so intently did I stick to it, though my head was bursting, that I
would never look up until the last column had been added. And yet it was
fine self-restraint, for all the time I knew that wonderful things were
happening in the mirror. Every nerve in my body told me so. If I looked
up there was an end of my work. So I did not look up till all was
finished. Then, when at last with throbbing temples I threw down my pen
and raised my eyes, what a sight was there!

The mirror in its silver frame was like a stage, brilliantly lit, in
which a drama was in progress. There was no mist now. The oppression
of my nerves had wrought this amazing clarity. Every feature, every
movement, was as clear-cut as in life. To think that I, a tired
accountant, the most prosaic of mankind, with the account-books of a
swindling bankrupt before me, should be chosen of all the human race to
look upon such a scene!

It was the same scene and the same figures, but the drama had advanced
a stage. The tall young man was holding the woman in his arms. She
strained away from him and looked up at him with loathing in her face.
They had torn the crouching man away from his hold upon the skirt of
her dress. A dozen of them were round him--savage men, bearded men. They
hacked at him with knives. All seemed to strike him together. Their
arms rose and fell. The blood did not flow from him-it squirted. His red
dress was dabbled in it. He threw himself this way and that, purple upon
crimson, like an over-ripe plum. Still they hacked, and still the jets
shot from him. It was horrible--horrible! They dragged him kicking to
the door. The woman looked ov