That was the very last thing he did--to curse his friends. Then he slammed out of the room, while his words were still ringing in my ears. I made a note of them before he had been gone ten minutes. I had offered to give him a helping hand, though he had deserved from me nothing of the kind; and I felt that it was only due to myself that I should set on record the fashion in which he had received my advances. I had that memorandum in my possession still. I had only referred to it on returning home after my first encounter with Mr. Babbacombe. And now here were almost the identical words staring up at me from the written sheet. It settled, once and for all, the question as to the identity of the person from whom that note had come, though it opened a still wider question as to what was the game which the man was playing, into whose toils I was being allured by labyrinthine yet seemingly inevitable ways. Vi perceived by my demeanour that something unusual had happened. 'What is it?' she asked. 'Bartlett, you can go. Tell the messenger to wait.' The man went. I could not have attempted an explanation while he was in the room. When he was gone my tongue still faltered. I re-read the words which, while they convinced me utterly, set me doubting all the more. Vi, watching me, repeated her inquiry. 'What is wrong, Douglas? Why do you look so strange?' I handed her the note. Rapid consideration seemed to show that was the shortest and the safest way. She read it with an obvious want of comprehension. 'What an extraordinary communication. What does it mean? From whom has it come?' 'It's from Twickenham.' 'Douglas!' She dropped her hands, note and all, on to her knee. 'To me it's like a voice from the grave. The words with which he bade me farewell are almost the identical ones with which he bids me come to him again.' 'Then it was he you saw?' 'Apparently.' 'And what does this mean?' 'It seems that he is ill.' 'Ill?' She referred to the note. 'He says that the Devil's got him by the throat. I shouldn't wonder. I believe, for my part, that there always is a time when that person comes to claim his own. You can't go on being wicked with impunity for ever. And that--he'll be dead to-morrow. Douglas, he says that he'll be dead before this time to-morrow.' 'So he says.' 'But--if he should be?' I knew the thought which was in her mind; though I kept my eyes from off her face. I was conscious of an unusual contraction of the muscles about the region of the heart. What was this evil with which I was trafficking? She turned herself inside out, with a sublime unconsciousness of the troubled waters which I felt that I was entering. 'I'll be able to marry Reggie; and you may marry Edith. So that I needn't write to him. Why, Douglas, this bad man's death will usher in a peal of wedding bells. It ought to ease his final moments to know that he'll do so much good by dying.'