ten in pencil and in a crazy
hand, quite unlike his usual minute characters. There remain only two
curious facts to record. Indisputably there was some connection between
Eden and Elvesham, since the whole of Elvesham's property was bequeathed
to the young man. But he never inherited. When Elvesham committed suicide,
Eden was, strangely enough, already dead. Twenty-four hours before, he had
been knocked down by a cab and killed instantly, at the crowded crossing
at the intersection of Gower Street and Euston Road. So that the only
human being who could have thrown light upon this fantastic narrative is
beyond the reach of questions. Without further comment I leave this
extraordinary matter to the reader's individual judgment.

XII.

UNDER THE KNIFE.

"What if I die under it?" The thought recurred again and again, as I
walked home from Haddon's. It was a purely personal question. I was spared
the deep anxieties of a married man, and I knew there were few of my
intimate friends but would find my death troublesome chiefly on account of
their duty of regret. I was surprised indeed, and perhaps a little
humiliated, as I turned the matter over, to think how few could possibly
exceed the conventional requirement. Things came before me stripped of
glamour, in a clear dry light, during that walk from Haddon's house over
Primrose Hill. There were the friends of my youth: I perceived now that
our affection was a tradition, which we foregathered rather laboriously to
maintain. There were the rivals and helpers of my later career: I suppose
I had been cold-blooded or undemonstrative--one perhaps implies the other.
It may be that even the capacity for friendship is a question of physique.
There had been a time in my own life when I had grieved bitterly enough at
the loss of a friend; but as I walked home that afternoon the emotional
side of my imagination was dormant. I could not pity myself, nor feel
sorry for my friends, nor conceive of them as grieving for me.

I was interested in this deadness of my emotional nature--no doubt a
concomitant of my stagnating physiology; and my thoughts wandered off
along the line it suggested. Once before, in my hot youth, I had suffered
a sudden loss of blood, and had been within an ace of death. I remembered
now that my affections as well as my passions had drained out of me,
leaving scarce anything but a tranquil resignation, a dreg of self-pity.
It had been weeks before the old a