unjust to him. Twice he went to the cheiromantist's address in West
Moon Street, but he could not bring himself to ring the bell. He
longed for certainty, and was afraid of it.

Finally it came. He was sitting in the smoking-room of the club
having tea, and listening rather wearily to Surbiton's account of
the last comic song at the Gaiety, when the waiter came in with the
evening papers. He took up the St. James's, and was listlessly
turning over its pages, when this strange heading caught his eye:


SUICIDE OF A CHEIROMANTIST.


He turned pale with excitement, and began to read. The paragraph
ran as follows:

Yesterday morning, at seven o'clock, the body of Mr. Septimus R.
Podgers, the eminent cheiromantist, was washed on shore at
Greenwich, just in front of the Ship Hotel. The unfortunate
gentleman had been missing for some days, and considerable anxiety
for his safety had been felt in cheiromantic circles. It is
supposed that he committed suicide under the influence of a
temporary mental derangement, caused by overwork, and a verdict to
that effect was returned this afternoon by the coroner's jury. Mr.
Podgers had just completed an elaborate treatise on the subject of
the Human Hand, that will shortly be published, when it will no
doubt attract much attention. The deceased was sixty-five years of
age, and does not seem to have left any relations.