soul no star of
peace returned. There dwelt night and chaos. If his passion were blind,
the blindness was wilful. For he saw clearly the end of what he meant to
do, and chose it. Whatever his love might have been worth, he had been
robbed of it, and for him life ended there. He was but an automaton of
vengeance now.

So having set resolve before him, and having done with it, he went
his way. His plan was long since laid, and was simple enough. Demetri
Agryopoulo was not the man to perplex himself with details until the
time came for them to be useful. When that time came he could rely upon
himself for invention. And so his plan was simply to take James Leland
alone, and then and there to put an end to him. He had taken a room in
a river-side public-house near Kingston, and thither he walked. He
made some grim excuse for the lateness of the hour and his bedraggled
garments to the drowsy ostler who had sat up for him, and calmed the
drowsy ostler's grumbles by a gift of half-a-crown. Then he drank a
glass of neat brandy, and went to bed and slept like an innocent child.

Next morning he was up early, ate a cheerful breakfast, delighted his
host with foreign affabilities, paid his bill, and went away by train
to London. Leaving his luggage in a cloak-room at the station, he took
a stroll about town, dropping into public-houses here and there, and
drinking terrible brandy. At home he drank _mastica_ as Englishmen drink
beer, and brandy was insipid as water to his palate, and had just now
almost as little effect upon his head. Demetri Agryopoulo had discovered
the one secret of the true dissembler, that he who controls his features
controls his mind. A man who can put a smile on his face while torments
rack him, can thereby calm the torments. The resolute will which arrests
the facial expression of grief or rage, allays the grief or rage. He
went about with an aspect of calm insouciance, and therefore with a
feeling of calm and ease within. Yet he was like one who walks with a
madman, knowing that if his own courage should for one instant seem to
waver, the maniac will be upon him. In his journey to town he had been
alone, and between one station and another he had opened his portmanteau
and taken therefrom a small breech-loading revolver and a stiletto. He
laid his hand upon these now and again, and smiled to himself.

The afternoon grew into evening. He took train to Wimbledon, and thence
struck across country in the di