Shedlock drew back appalled. In the mood he was in, the passage appeared to him like “the handwriting on the wall;” and yet, by a singular and unaccountable infatuation, he rejected the authority of the volume by which it was furnished. He tried to ponder on other things, but, the more he sought to divert his thoughts, the more did the one terrible fear of death, which had taken possession of his heart, grow and twine round them, and taint each individual reflection with its harrowing horror.
He became even more unnerved on the approach of night. Afraid to remain alone, he directed Zedekiah, in a tone that admitted of no question, to make up another bed in his chamber, and there watch him during the night. His injunction was fulfilled, but the precaution suggested by his fears, and from which he had hoped to have derived a degree of assurance, had no effect on his mind, and, however he might strive to compose it, it still would offer no thought but the one racking anticipation of approaching death.
He was quite without hope: even life itself, if it should be extended to him, had lost its charm—it could no more present to him the image of reality. As this reflection occurred to him, his heart burned again, and he asked himself why, if it were to bear on him like a burden, he should continue to endure life. Only the fear of what might succeed it could make it any way tolerable. Did he believe, then, that it was but the prelude to another existence? No! certainly not! For what reason, then, should he cling to it?
Such were the speculations that, almost in spite of his own will, shot through his fevered mind, over and over again, as he tossed restlessly on his pillow. He tried to shake them off, but they held to him, notwithstanding, with the grasp of giants. Thus, sweating with horror, he continued till near midnight: the burden then surpassed all endurance; and, muttering a blasphemous execration, he sprang from the bed, and staggered out on the floor.
As he came to a stand, he fell back against the toilet-table. He was about to raise himself, when his hand, in moving round the table, knocked against some extraneous substance, and he caught it up. It was a razor.
“’Twere a good thing, now, to end all,” he said.
Thus speaking, he drew the razor open, and raised it to his throat. He paused a moment, and then, with a perfectly steady hand, dashed the deadly blade into his flesh, and cut his throat right across. A loud yell rang in his ear, and he fell back a corpse.