at
wall-case rose in reproach; the little, impassive faces in those shallow
boxes seemed to look at me and ask why they had been killed. I had let
the man go; and he would certainly never come to my shop again. True, I
should know him again; but what better chance should I ever have of
identifying him? And then again came the unanswerable question: Was he
really the man, after all?

"So my thoughts fluttered to and fro. Constant, only, was a feeling of
profound dejection; a sense of unutterable, irretrievable failure. The
carter--a regular customer--rose and looked askance at me as he rubbed
his face with the towel. He remarked that I 'seemed to be feeling a bit
dull tonight,' paid his fee, and, with a civil 'good evening,' took his
departure.

"When he had gone I stood by the chair wrapped in a gloomy reverie. Had
I failed finally? Was my long quest at an end with my object unachieved?
It almost seemed so.

"I raised my eyes and they fell on my reflection in the large mirror;
and suddenly it was borne in on me that I was an old man. The passing
years of labor and mental unrest had left deep traces. My hair, which
was black when I first came to the east, was now snow-white and the face
beneath it was worn and wrinkled and aged. The sands of my life were
running out apace. Soon the last grains would trickle out of the glass;
and then would come the end--the futile end, with the task still
unaccomplished. And for this I had dragged out these twenty weary years,
ever longing for repose and the eternal reunion! How much better to have
spent those years in the peace of the tomb by the dear companion of my
sunny hours!

"I stepped up to the glass to look more closely at my face, to mark the
crow's-feet and intersecting wrinkles in the shrunken skin. Yes, it was
an old, old face; a weary face, too, that spoke of sorrow and anxious
thought and strenuous, unsatisfying effort. And presently it would be a
dead face, calm and peaceful enough then; and the wretch who had
wrought all the havoc would still stalk abroad with his heavy debt
unpaid.

"Something on the surface of the mirror interposed between my eye and
the reflection, slightly blurring the image. I focussed on it with some
difficulty and then saw that it was a group of finger-marks; the prints
made by the greasy fingers of my dandy customer when he had leaned on
the glass to inspect his teeth. As they grew distinct to my vision, I
was aware of a curious sense of f