malign power bent upon the wrecking of my peace forever--caused me to
open my eyes and sit up, wide awake and listening intently for I knew
not what. Then I thought I heard a faint tapping on the wall--the
mere ghost of the familiar signal. In a few moments it was repeated:
one, two, three--no louder than before, but addressing a sense alert
and strained to receive it. I was about to reply when the Adversary
of Peace again intervened in my affairs with a rascally suggestion of
retaliation. She had long and cruelly ignored me; now I would ignore
her. Incredible fatuity--may God forgive it! All the rest of the
night I lay awake, fortifying my obstinacy with shameless
justifications and--listening.

"Late the next morning, as I was leaving the house, I met my
landlady, entering.

"'Good morning, Mr. Dampier,' she said. 'Have you heard the news?'

"I replied in words that I had heard no news; in manner, that I did
not care to hear any. The manner escaped her observation.

"'About the sick young lady next door,' she babbled on. 'What! you
did not know? Why, she has been ill for weeks. And now--'

"I almost sprang upon her. 'And now,' I cried, 'now what?'

"'She is dead.'

"That is not the whole story. In the middle of the night, as I
learned later, the patient, awakening from a long stupor after a week
of delirium, had asked--it was her last utterance--that her bed be