set, his eyes staring.

"It is a quick way--a sure way," he muttered. "I haven't anything
to live for and but a few years at most. Nobody cares whether I
live or die--not even I. James Bansemer could not batter me down,
as he surely will, if I--"

He crossed to an old chest and unlocked its lid with feverish haste.
A bundle of papers came up in the grasp of his tense fingers.
Casting dreadful glances at the insistent axe, he seated himself
at the table and began looking over the papers.

"He won't take his father's rotten money, but he'll take mine.
It's honest. It represents wages honestly, bitterly earned. There's
more than twenty thousand to give him. He'll be surprised. Twenty
thousand." He laid the first paper, his will drawn in favour of
Graydon Bansemer, signed and addressed; upon the table, and then
carelessly tossed the other documents into the chest. "By the Lord
Harry, I'll have the best of James Bansemer yet. His boy will take
my money even though he spurns his. God, I wish I could see him
when he knows all this. It would be glorious."

He fingered the document for a tense moment, and then arose to
remove his coat and vest. These he hung away in his closet with all
his customary carefulness. In the middle of the room he stopped,
his quivering face turned toward the gaunt thing of execution. His
feet seemed nailed to the floor; his brain was urging him to go on
with the horrid deed, his body was rebelling. The torture of terror
was overpowering him.