d the letter of the bond unhesitatingly. For one week he would
live his life in the present upon that condition--one week with the
eighth day a blank, one week with the whole world his plaything.

He stared with new eyes from his window to the jumble of houses below, to
the jumble of stars above. The whole world expanded and vibrated before
the intensity of his passion. He was to condense a possible thirty or
forty years into seven days. To-day was the twenty-third of May. By
to-morrow noon he could adjust all his affairs. With nothing to demand
of them in the future it would be an easy matter to cut them off. On
Friday, May twenty-fourth, then, he could begin. This would bring the
end on the thirty-first.

He considered a moment; was it better to die at noon or at night? An odd
thing for a man to decide, but such details as this might as well be
fixed now as later. It took but a moment's deliberation; he elected to
go out at high noon. There would be dark enough afterwards--possibly an
eternity of dark. He would face the sun with his last gaze; he would
have the mad riot of men and women at midday ringing last in his ears.

As he drew in deep breaths it was as if he inhaled the whole world. He
felt as though, if he but stepped out sturdily enough, he could foot the
darkness. His head was light; his brain teemed with wild fancies. Then
pressing through this medley he saw for a moment the young woman who had
come to Barstow's laboratory. The effect was to steady him. He
remembered the sweet girlishness of her face, the freshness of it which
was like the freshness of a garden in the early morning. He realized
that she stood for one thing that he could never know. What was it that
he saw now in those strange eyes that left him a bit wistful at thought
of this? There was not a detail of her features, of her dress, of her
speech, that he could not see now as vividly as though she were still
standing before him. That was odd, too. He was not ordinarily so
impressionable. It occurred to him that he would not like her to know
what he was about to do. Bah, he was getting maudlin!

Late as it was, he left his room and went downtown to his office. He
worked here until daylight, falling asleep in his chair from four to
seven. He awoke fresh, and even more eager than the night before to
undertake his venture.

There remained still a few men to be seen. He transacted his business
with a brilliant dispat