“And let my last end be like his—Ah—ah!”
He drank again, and again wrote with fury. How old and how wicked he looked, yet how sad! He crouched down over the table and the pen broke in his hand. A dull exclamation burst from him. Taking up the bottle, he poured by accident some of the whiskey over the open Bible.
“A baptism! A baptism!” he ejaculated, bursting into laughter. “Now—now—let's see—let's see.”
Again he violently turned the sodden leaves and shook his head. He could not read the words, and that angered him. He drank again and again till the bottle was empty, then staggered out of the room. I heard his frantic footsteps echoing in the uncarpeted passage. Quickly I leaned in at the window and caught up the sheet of paper that had fallen to the floor. I held it up to the light. Only one sentence writhed up and down over it, repeated a dozen times; “There is no God!” While I read I heard the doctor returning, and I shrank back into the night. He came stumbling in, another whiskey bottle full in his hand. Falling down in the chair he applied his lips to it and drank—on and on. He was killing himself there and then. I knew it. I wanted to leap into the room, to stop him, yet I only watched him. Why?—I want to know why—
At last he fell forward across the Bible with a choking noise. His limbs struggled. His arms shot out wildly, the table broke under him—there was a crash of glass. The lamp was extinguished. Darkness crowded the little room—and silence.
The papers recorded the shocking death of a minister. They did not record this.
As I stole home that night, alone in my knowledge of the doctor's appalling end, I heard going before me light and tripping footsteps, those, apparently, of some youth, not above three yards or so from me. What wanderer thus preceded me, I asked myself, with a certain tingling of the nerves, shaken, perhaps, by what I had just seen? I paused. The steps also paused. The person was stopping too. I resumed my way. Again I heard the tripping footfalls. Their sound greatly disquieted me, yet I hurried, intending to catch up the wayfarer. Still the steps hastened along the highway, and always just before me. I ran, yet did not come up with any person. I called “Stop! Stop!” There was no reply. Again I waited. This man—or boy—(the steps seemed young) waited also. I started forward once more. So did he. Then a fury of fear ran over me, urging me at all hazards to see in whose train I travelled. We were now close to Carlounie. We entered the policies. Yes, this person turned from the public road through my gates into the drive, and the footfalls reached the very house. I stopped. I dared not approach quite close to the door. With trembling fingers I fumbled in my pocket, drew out my match-box, and, in the airless night, struck a match. The tiny flame burned steadily. I stretched my hand out, approaching it, as I supposed, to the face of the stranger.