nd deforming every
lighted thing it reflected--and also the new dark spot in his right.

He partially dressed, and stole up-stairs to old Torfs's
photographic studio. He knew where he could find a bottle full of
cyanide of potassium, used for removing finger-stains left by silver
nitrate; there was enough of it to poison a whole regiment. That was
better than taking a header off the roof. He seized a handful of the
stuff, and came down and put it into a tumbler by his bedside and
poured some water over it.

Then he got his writing-case and a pen and ink, and jumped into bed;
and there he wrote four letters: one to Lady Caroline, one to Father
Louis, one to Lord Archibald, and one to me in Blaze.

The cyanide was slow in melting. He crushed it angrily in the glass
with his penholder--and the scent of bitter-almonds filled the room.
Just then the sense of the north came back to him in full; but it
only strengthened his resolve and made him all the calmer.

He lay staring at the tumbler, watching little bubbles, revelling in
what remained of his exquisite faculty of minute sight--with a
feeling of great peace; and thought prayerfully; lost himself in a
kind of formless prayer without words--lost himself completely. It
was as if the wished-for dissolution were coming of its own accord;
Nirvana--an ecstasy of conscious annihilation--the blessed end, the
end of all! as though he were passing

"... du sommeil au songe--
Du songe a la mort."

It was not so....

* * * * *

He was aroused by a knock at the door, which was locked. It was
broad daylight.

"Il est dix heures, savez-vous?" said little Frau
outside--"voulez-vous votre cafe dans votre chambre?"

"O Christ!" said Barty--and jumped out of bed. "It's all got to be
done now!"

But something very strange had happened.

The tumbler was still there, but the cyanide had disappeared; so had
the four letters he had written. His pen and ink were on the table,
and on his open writing-case lay a letter in Blaze--in his own
handwriting. The north was strong in him. He called out to Finche
Torfs to leave his coffee in the drawing-room, and read his blaze
letter--and this is what he read:

"My dear Barty,--Don't be in the least alarmed on reading this hasty
scrawl, after waking from the sleep you meant to sleep forever.
There is no sleep without a live body to sleep in--no such thing as
everlasting sleep. Self