The box had originally held two pistols. He shuddered as he stooped to
pick up the weapon, and with the crawling repugnance mingled a panging
anger and humiliation. From his very babyhood it had always been
so--that unconquerable aversion to the touch of a firearm. There had
been moments in his youth when this unreasoning shrinking had filled him
with a blind fury, had driven him to strange self-tests of courage. He
had never been able to overcome it. He had always had a natural distaste
for the taking of life; hunting was an unthinkable sport to him, and
he regarded the lusty pursuit of small feathered or furry things for
pleasure with a mingled wonder and contempt. But analyzation had told
him that his peculiar abhorrence was no mere outgrowth of this. It lay
far deeper. He had rarely, of recent years, met the test. Now, as he
stood in these unaccustomed surroundings, with the cold touch of the
metal the old shuddering held him, and the sweat broke in beads on his
forehead. Setting his teeth hard, he crossed the room, slipped the box
with its pistol between the volumes of the bookcase, and returned to his
seat.

The bulldog, aroused from a nap, thrust a warm muzzle between his knees.
"It's uncanny, Chum!" he said, as his hand caressed the velvety head.
"Why should the touch of that fool thing chill my spine and make my
flesh tiptoe over my bones? Is it a mere peculiarity of temperament?
Some men hate cats'-eyes. Some can't abide sitting on plush. I knew a
chap once who couldn't see milk poured from a pitcher without getting
goose-flesh. People are born that way, but there must be a cause. Why
should I hate a pistol? Do you suppose I was shot in one of my previous
existences?"

For a long while he sat there, his pipe dead, his eyes on the
moonlighted out-of-doors. The eery feeling that had gripped him had
gone as quickly as it had come. At last he rose, stretching himself
with a great boyish yawn, put out all save one of the candles and taking
a bath-robe, sandals and a huge fuzzy towel from the steamer-trunk,
stripped leisurely. He donned the bath-robe and sandals and went out
through the window to the garden and down to where lay the little lake
ruffling silverly under the moon. On its brink he stopped, and tossing
back his head, tried to imitate one of the bird-calls but was
unsuccessful. With a rueful laugh he threw off the bath-robe and stood
an instant glistening, poised in the moonlight like a marble faun,
bef