Five days more!
They are a tireless breed, the red-police of Canada, and they have an eye in the centre of their foreheads that never sleeps. I once heard there was such an eye, but I forget about it.
This boy who watches me is nearly my own age, and I can see he is sorry for me. I will not whimper and wince, but will hedge myself about with a fence of laughter and bravado. It is the last kindness I can do to any one.
I like him better than the priest who visits me. I look at the priest with curious eyes, this man who in five days will wish me a pleasant journey into eternity. He it is who will read aloud my burial service while I yet live. They have no sense of propriety, these men.
May a murderer talk of propriety? No! but he may think on it, and write on it, and no one may contradict him.
This ecclesiastic has never loved a woman and so has never hated one, nor killed her in his hate.
Her mouth was like a red wound, but it was evenly pale with her face before I gave myself to the police.
God! I did not mean to strike her down; I did not mean to, but I did. Once, I read that no one was responsible for alienating a woman's affections but her own husband. If this be true, I murdered her twice.
I stooped to her as she lay at my feet and straightened her collar, also I pinned back a strand of hair that had come loose. Margaret is the best name of all. I like to say it often—Margaret.
There are yet four days.