hole body he flung himself round in his chair, and
cowering low against the arm, peered into the deepening shadows.

"All round about me," he whispered, "all about me those hands are
pulling, and yet--and--and----"

He laughed until his face, a white cameo against a grey velvet pall,
grinned like a mask of mirthless death, as slowly he raised one
clenched fist and shook it weakly until it fell back with a dull thud,
useless, against the chair.

"I thought I was afraid--I--I thought I saw--I saw death behind--but
I--I shall not die until--until I have written--written--what is it I
am to write--ah! yes!"

Searching sideways with his left hand he groped and found the pen, then
very carefully, very slowly turned towards the desk.

He drove the pen in fiercely, making a thick black mark; he pushed it
until the nib stuck, spluttered, and broke as he flung out both hands
as if grasping at something which evaded him.

"Gone!" he mouthed, though there was no sound of speech in the room.
"Gone--gone!" and he suddenly tore at his collar and his cuffs as
though to break some bond which held him, as he glanced furtively about
the room.

For one long moment he sat leaning forward, staring far beyond the
Indian screen upon which his eyes were fixed, and then slowly, almost
imperceptibly, his head moved.

The drawn white face had the hunted look of some animal at bay, the
agonised eyes moved as the head moved; slowly, slowly, inch by inch,
the breath coming stertorously as the mouth tried vainly to frame some
word.

The moon had gathered the last fold of her silvery raiment about her
and was creeping away through the open window just as Sir Jonathan
looked straight up into the eye gleaming malevolently through the gloom.

And as he looked the head moved gently so that the eye leered cunningly
into the distorted face beneath; it, hovered for a fraction of time on
the edge of the shelf and fell, just as the old man, with a blinding
flash of understanding sweeping his face, sprang to his feet, stood
upright, swayed forward, and fell back sideways, dead, across his
chair, staring across the room into eternity with eyes full of
knowledge and infinite horror.

CHAPTER IX

"How have I hated instruction, and my heart
despised reproof!"--_The Bible_.

"Oh! dear!"

The plaintive ejaculation fell on the drowsy noonday air, and the
speaker fished a chocolate out of the box, offered her in heartfelt
sympathy by her