hour again filled him with horror. It was probable that some day he
should be assassinated, but it would not happen to-morrow-it would not
happen to-morrow-and he could sleep undisturbed, as if he were really
immortal. Fools-they did not know what a great law they had dislodged,
what an abyss they had opened, when they said in their idiotic
kindness: "At one o'clock in the afternoon, your Excellency!"

"No, not at one o'clock in the afternoon, your Excellency, but no one
knows when. No one knows when! What?"

"Nothing," answered Silence, "nothing."

"But you did say something."

"Nothing, nonsense. I say: to-morrow, at one o'clock in the
afternoon!"

There was a sudden, acute pain in his heart-and he understood that he
would have neither sleep, nor peace, nor joy until that accursed black
hour standing out of the dial should have passed. Only the shadow of
the knowledge of something which no living being could know stood
there in the corner, and that was enough to darken the world and
envelop him with the impenetrable gloom of horror. The once disturbed
fear of death diffused through his body, penetrated into his bones.

He no longer feared the murderers of the next day-they had vanished,
they had been forgotten, they had mingled with the crowd of hostile
faces and incidents which surrounded his life. He now feared something
sudden and inevitable-an apoplectic stroke, heart failure, some
foolish thin little vessel which might suddenly fail to withstand the