f those
final moments--the man's face, handsome and well-satisfied at first, the
careless greeting, the sudden change, the surprise, the apprehension, the
ghastly fear, the agony! He heard the low, gurgling shriek of terror; he
looked into the eyes with the fear of hell before them! Then he heard the
splash of the black, filthy water.

There was a cry. It was several seconds before he realised that it had
broken from his lips. He looked around him like a hunted creature. There
was another terror now--the gloomy court with its ugly, miserable
paraphernalia--the death, uglier still, death in disgrace, a sordid,
ghastly thing! And in his brain, too, there was so much dawning, so many
wonderful ideas craving for fulfilment. These few months had been months
of marvellous development. The power of the writer had seemed to grow,
hour by hour. His brain was full of fancies, exquisite fancies some of
them. It was a new world growing up around him and within him, too
beautiful a world to leave. Yet, in those breathless moments, fear was
the dominant sensation. He felt a coward to his fingertips...

He walked up and down the room feverishly, as a man might pace a prison
in the first few moments of captivity. There was no escape! If he
disappeared again, it would only rivet suspicion the more closely. There
was no place to which he could fly, no shelter save on the other side of
the life which he had just begun to love. His physical condition began to
alarm him. He felt his forehead by accident and found it damp with sweat.
His heart was beating irregularly with a spasmodic vigour which brought
pain. He caught sight of his terror-stricken face in the looking-glass,
and the craving to escape from his frenzied solitude overcame all his
other resolutions. He rushed to the telephone, spoke with Phoebe, waited
breathlessly whilst she fetched his mistress to the instrument.

"I want to see you," he begged, as soon as he was conscious of her
presence at the other end. "I want to see you at once."

"Has anything happened?" she asked quickly.

"Yes!" he almost groaned. "I can't tell you--"

"I will be with you in ten minutes," she promised.

He set the receiver down. Those ten minutes were surely the longest which
had ever ticked their way into Eternity! And then she came. He heard the
lift stop and his door open. There was a moment's breathless silence as
their eyes met, then a little gathering together of the lines of her
forehead,