My imaginary attacks were now recurring with distracting frequency, and
I was in constant fear of discovery. During these three or four days I
slept scarcely at all--even the medicine given to induce sleep having
little effect. Though inwardly frenzied, I gave no outward sign of my
condition. Most of the time I remained quietly in bed. I spoke but
seldom. I had practically, though not entirely, lost the power of
speech; but my almost unbroken silence aroused no suspicions as to the
seriousness of my condition.

By a process of elimination, all suicidal methods but one had at last
been put aside. On that one my mind now centred. My room was on the
fourth floor of the house--one of a block of five--in which my parents
lived. The house stood several feet back from the street. The sills of
my windows were a little more than thirty feet above the ground. Under
one was a flag pavement, extending from the house to the front gate.
Under the other was a rectangular coal-hole covered with an iron
grating. This was surrounded by flagging over a foot in width; and
connecting it and the pavement proper was another flag. So that all
along the front of the house, stone or iron filled a space at no point
less than two feet in width. It required little calculation to
determine how slight the chance of surviving a fall from either of
those windows.

About dawn I arose. Stealthily I approached a window, pushed open the
blinds, and looked out--and down. Then I closed the blinds as
noiselessly as possible and crept back to bed: I had not yet become so
irresponsible that I dared to take the leap. Scarcely had I pulled up
the covering when a watchful relative entered my room, drawn thither
perhaps by that protecting prescience which love inspires. I thought