Throwing off his coat, Trafford fumbled in his waistcoat for a key. A moment later he was opening a small mahogany medicine-cupboard that was fixed against the wall over his book-case. His searching hand groped about in its recesses and then brought out—something. For a second he held this "something" at arms length, conning it with curious eyes, as a dilettante might study a precious cameo, or a bit of rare porcelain.
Then he put it carefully on the table. The electric light shone on a small, compact object, dark of colour and sinister of shape—a revolver!
Nervy Trafford took pen and paper and wrote; and as he wrote the curious light grew in his wild eyes, and a sad smile played about his sensitive mouth.
"Dearest," he began:—"You say you can never love me. I say that I can never cease to love you. You have spoken a lie, even as I have spoken the truth, for when the mists of life are dispelled by the glorious radiance beyond the grave, you will love me as I love you, perfectly, entirely, with the triple majesty of soul, mind and spirit. Till then, farewell.
Yours, as you are mine,
GEORGE TRAFFORD."
Having read this curious epistle twice, he put it in an envelope and addressed it to Miss Angela Knox, St. Regis Hotel. A moment later he took up the object from the table, looking into vacancy as he did so.
So this was to be his end!—an ending, he well knew, that none of his friends had ever dreamed of. A man on whom advice was thrown away, who seldom if ever thought twice, in other words, a creature of impulse, yes—they would admit all that; but on the other hand would they not recall many instances of his extricating himself from tight places through nothing else but this very impulsiveness and nerve of his? Inevitably, then, they would refuse to believe that a man like that, however hopeless his infatuation, would take his own life. All of which merely goes to show how ridiculous it is for our best friends to scoff at the notion that an affair of the heart may be taken seriously.
Trafford's face was literally bloodless; his pupils infinitesimal black dots, gazing searchingly through the walls of his room into the great beyond, where all questions are answered, all doubts set at rest. For a moment he stood thus in vibrant silence. Then,—as if his mute searching had received its dumb response,—his lips breathed a woman's name, the muzzle of the revolver was raised head high, there was a click—and nothing more than a click!
Trafford's arm fell limp to his side, and a look of sick pain shuddered across his face. Then, an idea, a wafted air of recollection, fanned the light of understanding into his dull eyes. A ghost of a smile hovered at the corner of his lips, and again the cold hand raised the deadly mechanism to his pulsing temple. Even as it did so the door of his room was opened, and with a gesture of annoyance Trafford tossed the unused weapon on to the table and facing the intruder burst out with:
"Who on earth——"