Several minutes crawled away.
From afar there came the long rumble of thunder. But it was not this that he heard as he stood wrestling with the fiercest temptation he had ever known.
Stiffly at last he stooped, peered into the drawer, finally closed it with an unfaltering hand. The struggle was over.
"For your sake, Damaris!" he said aloud, and he spoke without cynicism. "I should know how to wait by now—even for death—which is all I have to wait for."
And with that he pulled the fluttering paper from the wall, crushed it in his hand, and went out heavily into the night.
[1] This story was originally issued in the Red Magazine.