letter I said that on the 4th of July, one month from now, if

nothing has then happened to change the situation, I shall be compelled to risk displeasing him, and I shall go to R. That's crossing the Rubicon, Gwen, and I'm awfully frightened now. He will call it defiance, and rave, I know. "Be bold, be bold, be not too bold." But, then, I can always tame the monster with one Delilah kiss. I think I know my man, and can conquer my conqueror, and it is time now to begin to assert myself a little. . . .

Isn't there something queerish in his relation with "Mrs. S."? He stands in such mortal fear of her! I don't think it is quite pretty for a man to have such tremors for any earthly reason. One day I asked him why he could not introduce me to her as--a friend? She might take a fancy to me, I said, since I am generally popular. He looked quite frightened at the mere suggestion of such a thing. . . .

That last night, coming home from the theater, he said something about "Anna." I asked him who Anna was. He said: "I mean Mrs. S.," looking, it seemed to me, rather put out. I had never heard him call her Anna before. . . .

My voice is certainly not what it was, and not through any want of practise, I'm sure. People so hopelessly worried as I am at present can't sing really well. For the second time yesterday I wrote that I shall really go to mother after the fourth of next month, and I mean it, I do mean it! I owe something to her, too, and to myself, and I still don't see what harm it can do to Harry. Poor dear, he is awfully frightened! "If you persist in this wild notion, you will compel me to take a step which will be bitter to you and to myself." I don't know what step he can mean. That's only talk. I'll do it just to see what happens, for one oughtn't to threaten a woman with penalties which she can't conceive, or her curiosity will lead her to do the very thing. It was an ill-understood threat that made Eve eat the apple, my Hal. "Thou shalt surely die"; but, not knowing what "to die" was like, she thought to herself: "Well, just to see." There's no particularly "bitter step" that he can take, and the time is really come for me to assert myself a little now. Men love a woman better when she is not all milk and honey. . . .

It is near now, Vi! He has her chin, her hands, her dark grave eyes, her very smile. I am on the point at last of seeing him in her arms. How will she look? What will she think of me, the little girl whom she used to guide with her eye, beating her a hundred miles, an old experienced mummie while she is still a maid! I can no more resist it than I could fly! I shall do it! I am going to do it! I told Harry that I should. There's no danger, and I can't resist it any longer. I am just back from P. He is looking too sweet now for anything, and can blow the whistle of the rattle. I told Mrs. C. that in three days' time I shall be taking him from her for at least ten days, perhaps for good. Only three days! Sarah is beginning to get things ready....

Yes, it was "a bitter step" enough, poor Hal! God help you and me, and all the helpless!...

I told poor Sarah just now: "I am not married. You only think that I am; but I am not. I have a child; but I am not married. Sarah, this is no fit place for a girl like you." She thinks that I am mad, I know, but I keep quite sane and myself. I am only sorry for poor old Hal. He loves me and I loved him when I had a heart....

I thought of seeing the boy once more, but I haven't the energy. I don't seem to care. If I should care, or love, or hate, or eat, it wouldn't be so horrible. But I am only a ghost, a sham. I am really dead. My nature is akin with the grave, and has no appetite but for that with which it is akin. Well, I will soon come. It shall be to-morrow night, just after Sarah is gone. But I must rouse myself first to do that which is my duty. I ought, as a friend, to cover up poor Hal's traces, and yet I must be just to the boy, too. He ought to know when he grows up that, if his mother was unfortunate, she was not abandoned, and it is my duty to leave for him the proofs of it. But how to do that, and at the same time protect Harry, is the question, for I suppose that the police will search the flat. It is very wearisome. I doubt if my poor head is too clear to-day....

It shall be like this: I'll hide the things somewhere where the police won't readily find them. I'll invent a place. Then I shall write to Vi, not telling her what is going to happen to me, but telling her that if in a few months' time she will thoroughly search a certain flat in London, she will find what will be good for her and mother and the boy. And I shall give the address; but I won't tell her exactly where I hide the things; for fear of the police getting hold of the letter and arresting Harry. And I will post it after Sarah is gone to-morrow night, just before I do it. That's what I shall do. I'm pretty artful, my brain is quite clear and calm. I don't know yet where I shall hide the things; but I shall find a place, I shall hoodwink them all, and manage everything just nicely. Sarah thinks that I'm mad, but I'm not. It is she who is raving mad, and people who are mad think that every one is, except themselves.

I'll hide the diary in one place, the certificates in another, and the photograph of the boy's father in another. That's what I'll do. Then I'll tear up all other papers small. No, I'll hide as well the letter in which he says that he is Mrs. S.'s husband, and that I'm not his legal wife; for some day I should like Vi to know that I did not take my life for nothing, but was murdered before I killed myself. Then I'll do it. It isn't bitter; it's sweet. Death's a hole to creep in for shelter for one's poor head. Harry will be in England in five days' time, so I'll write him a letter to the Constitutional to say good-by. He loves me. He didn't mean to kill me. He only told me in order to stop me from going home. It is such a burden to write to him, but it is my duty to give him one last word of comfort, and I will.

Then, when all this world of business is over and done, I'll do it. It isn't bitter; it's sweet. God, I couldn't face them! Forgive me! I know that it is wicked; but it is nice, is death. Things are as they are. One can't fight against the ocean. It is sweet to close one's eyes, and drown.

That word "drown" was the last. David closed the book with a blackness in his heart and brain.

The reading of it had brought him only grief and little light for practical purposes. That "Mrs. S." meant "Mrs. Strauss" he had no doubt, nor any doubt that "Harry" meant Henry Van Hupfeldt. Still, there was no formal proof of it. The name of her home, to learn which he had dared to open the diary, appeared only as "R." The only pieces of knowledge which the reading brought him were, firstly, that there were a photograph and a letter still hidden in the flat--certainly, not in any of the pictures, for he had searched them all; and secondly that "Harry" was a member of the Constitutional Club. As for the child, it was, or had been, at "P.," in the care of one "Mrs. C."