derstand my feelings. I was about to
destroy something I loved better than life itself, but it was not she
who was lying on the bed. _She_ had died before--died by her own
act--leaving behind her another woman whose life was a living lie, who
was so corrupt and worthless as to be unfit to live. It was _that_ I was
going to destroy. I felt no compunction--no remorse. As I placed the
muzzle of the revolver against her breast, she opened her eyes in
terror, and saw me. I pulled the trigger quickly.... As I did so I heard
the dinner gong sound downstairs.

"The muffled report made less noise than the clapping of a pair of
hands. I knew that faint sound would not be heard downstairs. She never
moved, and I thought she was dead. I bent over the fireplace, shook some
caps out of the butt of the pistol, and placed one on the nipple. Then I
lit a match and started my prepared fuse. It was an easy matter to place
the pistol in position at the top of the grate; the difficulty of
recovering it subsequently was not made manifest to me until after my
illness, although my previous secret examination of the grate had
convinced me that the recoil of the explosion would cause the pistol to
fall to the bottom of the chimney behind the grate. When I had placed
the pistol in position I turned off the electric light, and opened the
window to allow the fumes of the burning wick to escape. Then I hurried
downstairs. I was not in the room three minutes altogether. I saw nobody
on my way down; nearly everybody had gone in to dinner, but I was in
time to sit down with the others.

"I felt quite cold and collected as I sat at the dinner table waiting
for the moment of my vengeance. I felt as though I was under the control
of some force immensely stronger than myself which held me firm with
giant hands while the minutes slowly ebbed away. I am sure there was
nothing unusual in my behaviour. I pretended to eat, and joined in the
conversation around me.

"The report did not come at the moment I anticipated, but I was not
perturbed at the delay. My experiments had taught me the difficulty of
fixing an explosion for an exact period. The time was in general
approximately the same, but there were reasons which caused a slight
difference. The wick always burnt at a uniform rate; the trouble was
with the string. Sometimes it was slow in catching. Sometimes the
pressure of the string partly extinguished the wick and made combustion
slower as it neared th