THERE is a woman, sir.

A WOMAN----but I want to be alone.

THE old servant slept--roused for a moment by the closing of a door.

SHE'S gone, he muttered--and slept again.

* * * * *

THROUGH the splendor of the night they went--through its mystery, its
beauty.

SHE, tense, frightened lest her power should fail on the verge of
success--

HE in a kind of trance, with wavering mind--strange thoughts--nothing
clear--a haze

THEY stopped under a great oak.

DO you remember your Egyptian Dancer asked Donna Maria for the hundredth
time.

EGYPTIAN Dancer, he answered tonelessly. No, I tell you I killed him.

WITH a sense of victory she led him on through the night.

HER mind incessantly repeated to the overpowered mind of the artist

YOU killed him------You killed him.

THE alienist gave his testimony. The prisoner was mad. Clearly.

TO every question he responded--I killed him.

AND endlessly the court room resounded with dull, monotonous voices

SOME pleading for--some against the artist.

DONNA MARIA was satisfied.

SHE would go away and Robert--well, no matter--

SHE hated him.

HE had scorned her advances--her coquettish smiles, years ago in Rome
when he was a student.

SHE had been unable to forget. Her pride was like an open wound.

HALE was acquitted.

BUT his mind was gone. A harmless type of insanity expressing itself in
vague reiterations of a fixed idea.

DAY after day he walked in the open--Once on and on, down a slope. He
slipped. And made a violent clutch to save himself. The cold waters of
the river closed over him. Shock and sudden pain--the penetrating pain
that comes with returning consciousness--

HE began to struggle, got his stroke and swam.

* * * * *

DID you kill the Banker Brunton, the physician inquired gently.

THE Banker Brunton--Hale asked curiously--I never heard of him.

A TRAIN of thought seemed starting.

BUT I remember a woman--she dropped her muff--I stooped to pick it up

SHE must have struck me--

OR was it her eyes!

ONCE, long ago--in Rome--she tried to influence me that way.

I DESPISE her.

WHEN she came back I was tired. I gave in. Let's not talk about it.

THE physician looked at Hale with the look of a kind big brother.

THEN he went to the telephone.

THE LAST

THIS is the last day for me. Tomorrow at this time many hours will have
passed since the iron door o