freedom came
a resolve--that whatever portion of myself had been responsible for this
prank should not repeat it if I could possibly prevent it.

But scarcely had I come, as I may say (and not without a little gush of
alarm now that it was over), to myself, when I was struck by a thought.
It was a queer wild sort of thought. It fetched me out of my chair and
set me striding across the library to a lower shelf in the farthest
corner. This shelf was the shelf on which I kept my letter-files. I
stooped and ran my fingers along the backs of the dusty row. I drew out
the file for 1900, and brought it back to my writing-table. My contracts,
I ought to say, reposed in a deed-box at my agent's office; but my files
contained, in the form of my agent's letters, a sufficient record of my
business transactions.

I opened the file concertina-wise, and turned to the section lettered
"R." I drew out the correspondence that related to the sale of the first
series of the _Martin Renards_. As I did so I glanced at the movable
calendar on my table. The date was January 20th.

The file contained no letters for January of any significance whatever.

The thought that had half formed in my brain immediately became nonsense.
I replaced the letters in their compartment, and took the file back to
its shelf again. For some minutes I paced the library irresolutely; then
I decided I would work no more that night. When I gathered together my
papers I was careful to place that with the half-finished sentence on the
top, so that with the first resting of my eyes upon it on the morrow my
memory might haply be refreshed.

I tried again to finish that sentence on the morrow. With certain
modifications that I need not particularise here, my experience was the
same as on the previous night.

It was the same when I made the attempt on the day after that.

At ten o'clock of the night of the fourth day I completed the sentence
without difficulty. I just sat down in my chair and wrote it.

With equal ease I finished the chapter on professional artists.

It was not likely that Schofield would have refrained from telling
Maschka of our little difference on our last meeting; and within a week
of the date I have just mentioned I learned that she knew all about it.
And, as the circumstances of my learning this were in a high degree
unusual, I will relate them with such clearness as I am able.

I ought first to say, however, that the selection of the drawi