Only as the quiet hours wore on he began to feel that the limit of his endurance was almost reached. He told himself that even Iris herself would not willingly sanction such suffering as his had now become. In all the world he desired only one boon—oblivion, unconsciousness, rest from this state of being which was surely unendurable; and as a more exquisitely painful throb of anguish shot through his head he plunged his hand into his breast-pocket in search of a certain little case which was generally to be found there during his day's round.
But he remembered, with a sudden keen disappointment, that he had changed his coat on returning home to dinner, and the means of alleviation which he sought were not at hand.
He half rose, intending to go in search of the thing he wanted; but the effort of moving was too much, and he sank back again with an irritable groan and prepared to endure still more of this misery.
Next he thought he would try the effect of a cigarette, but the matches were not on the table before him. That obstacle, however, need not be insurmountable, for in a drawer at his elbow he kept a supply, and moving cautiously, for every movement set his nerves jangling, he turned on the couch and opened the drawer to seek the matches which should be there.
He found them immediately, and was in the act of taking one from the box when his eye fell on a small package which somehow roused a strange feeling of interest in his pain-shrouded mind.
It seemed familiar—at least he thought he remembered handling it before, and by a queer twist of memory he thought of Mrs. Carstairs as he took up the mysterious little parcel and turned it about in his hands.
Yet his throbbing brain would not allow him to feel certain what was really inside the packet, and with a sudden access of nervous irritation he broke the seal which held its contents a mystery, and tore off the enwrapping papers.
And as he realized what it was that the paper had hidden he uttered an exclamation in which surprise and dismay and relief were oddly blended.
In his hand he held a box containing a hypodermic syringe and a supply of morphia, and now he remembered how Mrs. Carstairs had told him of her purchase of the same, and her subsequent decision to let the insidious thing alone. She had given him the packet without apparent reluctance, and as his own words, "I shan't be tempted to steal yours for my private use," came flashing back to his memory he smiled, rather cynically, to himself.
"If I believed in signs and omens I should take this as an unmistakable invitation to me to hesitate no longer." He fingered the syringe thoughtfully. "And upon my soul I don't see why I shouldn't accept it as a sign. In any case"—all the pent-up bitterness of his soul found vent in the words—"in future what I do can have no interest for Iris Cheniston!"