on to leave me penniless. He told me it was I
that had made the decision, not he, and that he had no use for
wishy-washy people that changed their minds like weather-cocks. He was
very sarcastic. I lost my temper and answered him back. We had a
terrible quarrel, and finally he--he struck me. I was twenty years old
and a bigger man than he. And I think no man ever had more stubborn
pride, at bottom, than I have.

"It was the Wolansky thing all over again. The humiliation, the effort
at ingratiation, the failure, the long, eating, gnawing, growing hatred.
And it--it ended the same way. The night of brooding that hardened into
a devilish decision, the vision of the long arm, growing, stretching,
crawling--but not so far this time, only through two walls and across
our own house. You remember that Father died of an apoplectic stroke,
just as Wolansky had done a year or two before."

"Yes, I think I remember," I said in considerable embarrassment. The
thing _did_ begin to look uncanny. I was thoroughly sorry for the poor,
cracked fellow, but I would just as soon not have been alone with him in
that solitary drinking-place in the twilight.

"Well?" he said, almost sharply.

"Well, Banaotovich," I answered with a show of confidence, "you have had
a great deal of unhappiness, and you have my sympathy. This strange
faculty you have of anticipating deaths, like the night-owls and the
death-watch that ticks in the walls, has made these bereavements an
occasion of self-torment for you. I think you should see a
psychiatrist."

"Anticipating--anticipating?" Banaotovich had gone back and was
repeating a word I had used, and as he repeated it he drummed madly on
the table with his fingers. "It's a curious coincidence that
'anticipating' is just the word my wife used when I told her about it."

"You--told--your wife--what you have just told me?" I stammered. "Do you
think that was wise?"

"I couldn't help it," he said with a catch in his throat. "I thought I
loved her, and I had to talk to somebody. I was miserable, and I had a
feeling that she might understand and be brought closer to me by
sympathy. Now that I think of it, I can see that I was an egregious
idiot, but I discovered long ago that we aren't rational beings after
all. We are driven or drawn by mysterious forces, and we go to our
destination because we can't help it.

"My wife had always seemed a little timid with me. I never seemed to
have the gift of attracting