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delusion that I shall interfere. I give you my solemn word of honor that I shall not do so. I need hardly say that I await the result of your deliberations with the liveliest interest."

Ainsworth crossed toward the door. At the threshold he paused.

"Just one word more, The walls of this room are specially constructed to shut out from the rest of the house the noise of explosions that occasionally become necessary during my researches. To shout would be the merest waste of breath on your part."

A moment later the door had closed behind him.

Almost inevitably Sinclair employed the first few minutes of his half hour in shouting for help, only to discover that Ainsworth had spoken no more than the truth when he called the room sound-proof.

He soon desisted and attempted to focus his mind on his situation, but the horror of it was such that only with the greatest difficulty could he escape from the paralysis that had seized his brain. Sheer numbing terror gripped him. The grisly experiment with the rat had convinced him that it was indeed no bluff with which he was dealing, Meanwhile the hands of the clock inexorably traveled toward the moment when even deliberate choice would he denied him by an agency more terrible than either horn of his dilemma could be. Helplessly his eves traveled from the switch, so conveniently close to his right hand, to the hypodermic syringe equally handy on his left.

Gradually he forced himself to realize that it must be one or the other.

He looked at the electric switch. Certain, instantaneous, painless, but—death.

The syringe looked harmless enough. Water perhaps. That would not do a fellow any harm—but then one couldn't be sure. One wouldn't even know afterwards, not for a year perhaps, not for two, three, four, or even longer. How could one go on, dreading from day to day the outbreak of some awful disease, like the man in the model. Good God! Death were better a thousand times than that! But on the other hand. there was always hope. "Hope springs eternal". Yes, and fear also.

Still, to die suddenly with all the world bright and inviting, and love. . .

This brought another aspect of the problem to his tortured mind.

Suppose he chose the syringe, and kept his life for the time at least: what was he to do with it? One couldn't marry, and have children, perhaps, with a thing like that, maybe, in one's blood. That dream was ended either way. Pretty damnable. Just what would life be like? Love shut off, fear sitting daily on one's shoulders. If one only knew when it would strike. But one would never know—never know. That was the constant tenor of his mental travail. Always his mind came back to that. One would never know.

After all, what was death? Clean, swift (when one had seen five years of war, death wasn't quite the staring horror it seemed to the man in the street). Pretty rotten, of course. One hated to be snuffed out like that, but there were worse things.

His mind went back by a freakish turn to the story of the captured spies who preferred the death they knew. He remembered his own unbelief.

"Damn it, the fellows were right!" he cried bitterly.

It was just three minutes to 10 when he shut his eves tight, gave a little gasp, and pushed over the switch.

The doctor had returned from the dining room. He had no intention of joining his niece until he knew the result of his experiment. He lit