chamber of the safe. A flickering desire to see led
him to where, on. the bureau, a lamp had been left.
The chimney fell with a crash of splintering glass
upon the floor, a match flared in his stiff fingers,
and the unprotected wick burned with a choking,
spectral blue light.

He saw, gazing at him from the black depths of
the mirror above the bureau, a haggard face drained
of all life, of all blood, with deep inky pools upon
the eyes. A sudden emotion stirred in the chill immobility
creeping upward through him.

"Lettice!" he cried in a voice as flat as a spent
echo; "Lettice!"

He stumbled back, sinking.

Edgar Crandall found him kneeling at the bed,
his arms out-flung across the counterpane, his head
bowed between, with a blackening stain beneath his
clay-cold lips, beneath his face scarred with immeasurable
suffering, fixed in a last surprise.

-- the end --

p367 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p368w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ c001

v?