s himself. Some
men let that priceless property depreciate, some improve it, it is given
to few men to tamper with it after the fashion of Jones.

He saw this now, and just as though a pit had opened before him he drew
back. He must stop this double life at once and become his own self in
reality; failing to do that he would meet madness. He recognised this.
No man's brain could stand what he had been going through for long; had
he been left to himself he might have adapted his mind gradually to the
perpetual shifting from Jones to Rochester and vice versa. The woman had
brought things to a crisis. The horror that had now suddenly fallen on
him, the horror of the return of that awful feeling of negation, the
horror of losing himself, cast all other considerations from his mind.

He must stop this business at once.

He would go away, return straight to America.

That was easy to be done--but would that save him? Would that free him
from this horrible clinging personality that he had so lightly cast
around himself?

Nothing is stranger than mind. From the depth of his mind came the
whisper, "No." Intuition told him that were he to go to Timbuctoo,
Rochester would cling to him, that he would wake up from sleep fancying
himself Rochester and then that feeling would return. What he required
was the recognition by other people that he was himself, Jones, that the
whole of this business was a deception, a stage play in real life. Their
abuse, their threats would not matter. Their blows would be welcome, so
he thought. Anything that would hit him back firmly into his real
position in the scheme of things and save him from the dread of some day
losing himself.

After a while the exercise and night air calmed his mind. He had come to
the great decision. A decision immutable now, since it had to do with
the very core of his being. He would tell her everything. To-morrow
morning he would confess all. Her fascination upon him had loosened its
hold, the terror had done that. He no longer loved her. Had he ever
loved her? That was an open question, or in other words, a question no
man could answer. He only knew now that he did not crave for her regard,
only for her recognition of himself as Jones.

She was the door out of the mental trap into which his mind had
blundered.

These considerations had carried him far into a region of mean streets
and suburban houses. It was long after twelve o'clock and he fell to
thinking what