“I did not strike him down. Neither did I spare him. I waited and I--I used him. I know how to wait; I am of the nature that can wait. It was years before fate drew all things together for my purpose, and gave him into my hands--fate, assisted by myself. “I waited, and I used him. The details are not pertinent for it is not his story that I am telling. I piloted him to the brink of destruction, and then--then, I saved him.” “You saved him?” Dr. Beaulieu was puzzled; but his fear, if fear it was, had not abated. There was a frank menace, now, in his visitor's air. And the healer seemed to be struggling, as he listened to the tale, to force some reluctant brain-cell to unlock and give its stored memories to his conscious mind. “I saved him. I saved him to be my creature. I broke him, and I saved him. I made him my slave, my dog, my--my anything I choose to have him. I have work for him to do.” Again the man paused, looking about the rich profusion of Dr. Beaulieu's studio. There was a table in the room which contained a number of curios from Eastern lands. The visitor suddenly rose from his chair and picked from among them a thin, keen-bladed dagger. It was a beautiful weapon, of some Oriental make; beautiful in its lines; beautiful with the sullen fire of many jewels blazing in its hilt--an evil levin that got into the mind and led the thoughts astray even as the dainty deadliness of the whole tool seduced the hand to grasp and strike. As his visitor, strangely breaking the flow of his narrative, examined and handled the thing, Dr. Beaulieu shuddered. “The man is as much my tool,” said the visitor slowly, “as this dagger would be your tool, Dr. Beaulieu, if you chose to thrust it into my breast--or into your own.” He laid the dagger down on the table, and resumed his seat. Dr. Beaulieu said nothing, but he found it difficult to withdraw his eyes from his visitor's steady stare. Slumped and sagged within his chair, he said nothing. Presently the visitor went on. “I had a fancy, Dr. Beaulieu; I had a fancy! It suited me to make my revenge a less obvious thing than striking down the old friend who had betrayed my love and confidence, a less obvious thing than striking down the other man--the man whose face was in the locket.” As he spoke he took from his pocket a locket. He opened it, and gazed upon the face. The healer half rose from his chair, and then sank back, with a hoarse, inarticulate murmur. His face had turned livid, and he trembled in every limb. It was evident that the missing scene which he had sought before had suddenly been flashed upon the cinema screen of his recollection. He remembered, now---- “It was my fancy, Dr. Beaulieu, to make one of them take revenge upon the other, that I might thus be revenged upon them both.” He suddenly rose, and forced the locket into the healer's nerveless grasp. “That face--look at it!” he cried, towering over the collapsed figure before him.