“I had a fancy, Dr. Beaulieu; I had a fancy! It suited me to make my revenge a less obvious thing than striking down the old friend who had betrayed my love and confidence, a less obvious thing than striking down the other man—the man whose face was in the locket.”
As he spoke he took from his pocket a locket. He opened it, and gazed upon the face. The healer half rose from his chair, and then sank back, with a hoarse, inarticulate murmur. His face had turned livid, and he trembled in every limb. It was evident that the missing scene which he had sought before had suddenly been flashed upon the cinema screen of his recollection. He remembered, now——
“It was my fancy, Dr. Beaulieu, to make one of them take revenge upon the other, that I might thus be revenged upon them both.”
He suddenly rose, and forced the locket into the healer's nerveless grasp.
“That face—look at it!” he cried, towering over the collapsed figure before him.
Compelled by a will stronger than his own, Dr. Beaulieu looked. It was the counterfeit presentment of himself within. It fell from his trembling fingers and rolled upon the floor. The cultist buried his face in his hands.
The other man stepped back and regarded him sardonically for a moment or two.
“I should not wonder,” he said, “if the man who used to be my best friend would pay you a visit before long—perhaps in an hour, perhaps in a week, perhaps in a month.”
He picked up the dagger again, and toyed with it.
“This thing,” he said, impersonally, trying the point upon his finger, “is sharp. It would give a quick death, a sure death, an almost painless death, if one used it against another man—or against one's self.”