eing noticed by the stranger. The papers referred to a precious
secret, a gigantic combination, which he had spent years in maturing. I
shivered at the sound of his voice, and turned to Lola.

"This is no place for you. Go into your bedroom till you are wanted."

I held the door open for her. She put her hands up to her face and
reeled, and I thought she would have fallen; but she roused herself.

"I don't want to break down--not yet. I shall if I'm left alone--come
and sit with me, for God's sake."

"Very well," said I.

She passed me and I followed; but at the door I turned and glanced round
the cheerful, sunny room. There, against the background of blue sky and
tree tops framed by the window, sat Anastasius Papadopoulos, swinging
his little legs and talking bombastically to the tanned and grizzled
doctor, and opposite stood the correctly attired hotel manager in
the attitude in which he habitually surveyed the lay-out of the table
d'hote, keeping watch beside the white-covered shape on the floor. I was
glad to shut the sight from my eyes. We waited silently in the bedroom,
Lola sitting on the bed and hiding her face in the pillows, and I
standing by the window and looking out at the smiling mockery of the
fair earth. An agonising spasm of pain--a _momento mori_--shot through
me and passed away. I thanked God that a few weeks would see the end of
me. I had always enjoyed the comedy of life. It had been to me a thing
of infinite jest. But this stupid, meaningless tragedy was carrying the
joke too far. My fastidiousness revolted at its vulgarity. I no longer
wished to inhabit a world where such jests were possible. . . . I had
never seen a man die before. I was surprised at the swiftness and
the ugliness of it. . . . I suddenly realised that I was smoking a
cigarette, which I was quite unconscious of having lit. I threw it away.
A minute afterwards I felt that if I did not smoke I should go crazy. So
I lit another. . . . The ghastly silliness of the murder! . . . Colonel
Bunnion's loud laugh rose from the terrace below, jarring horribly on
my ears. A long green praying mantis that had apparently mounted on the
bougainvillea against the hotel wall appeared in meditative stateliness
on the window-sill. I picked the insect up absent-mindedly, and began
to play with it. Lola's voice from the bed startled me and caused me to
drop the mantis. She spoke hoarsely.

"Tell me--what are they going to do with him?"

I turned