p.

After scrutinizing them an instant, the latter looked up with a crooked,
startled stare.

"Are you joking? Why, these are your insurance policies!"

"Exactly! There are seventeen of them, and they foot up one million
dollars--the limit in every company. They begin to expire in March, and
I don't intend to renew them. In fact, I couldn't if I wanted to."

The two men regarded each other silently for a moment, then the younger
paled.

"Are you--crazy?" he gasped.

"The doctors didn't think so, and that is the heaviest life insurance
carried by any man in America, with a few exceptions. Do you think they
would have passed me if I'd been wrong up here?" He tapped his forehead.
"I intend that you shall receive twenty-five thousand dollars of that
money; the rest will go to Muriel."

DeVoe continued to stare alternately at the policies and his friend;
then cleared his throat nervously.

"Let's talk plainly."

"By all means. You will need to know the truth, but you are the only one
outside of myself who will. For some time I have felt the certainty that
I am going to die."

"Nonsense! You are an ox."

"The more I've thought about it the more certain I've become, until now
there isn't the slightest doubt in my mind. I took my last dollar and
bought that insurance. Do you understand? I'm considered rich, therefore
they allowed me to take out a million dollars."

"Sui--God Almighty, man!" DeVoe's sagging jaw snapped shut with a click.

"Let me finish; then you can decide whether I'm sane or crazy, and
whether you want that twenty-five thousand dollars enough to help me. To
begin with, I'll grant you that I'm young--only forty--healthy and
strong. But I'm broke, Henry. I don't believe you realize what that
means to a chap who has had two fortunes handed to him and has
squandered both. I'm really twice forty years of age, perhaps three
times, for I have lived faster than most men. I have been everywhere, I
have seen everything, I have done everything--except manual labor, and
of course I don't know how to do that--I have had every sensation. I'm
sated and old, and sometimes I'm a bit tired. I have no enthusiasm left,
and I'm bankrupt. To make matters worse I have a wife who knows the
truth and two lovely children who do not. Those kids believe I'm a hero
and the greatest man in all the universe; in their eyes I'm a sort of
demigod, but in a few years they'll learn that I have been a waster and
thrown away not o