Had there remained in my mind any doubt as to his sanity this absurd effusion would have effectually removed it. The sound of the church clock chiming the half hour now smote on my ears. If the maniac adhered to his threat I had but thirty minutes left to live, and I concentrated all my faculties upon the difficulties of my position. My uncle must by this time have returned with Sir Hugh, and on finding myself as well as the keys of the Nuns' Tower and the gallery missing, would guess where I was and they might even now be on their way to seek me and to arrest the artist. If they were listening outside they would hear Angelo's voice and would understand the peril I was in. They could not easily force the door, nor, if they had any suspicion of the artist's insanity, would they be so rash as to try, but one blow would shatter the window and give them instant admission into the tower. Buoyed up with the hope that help might arrive at any moment, I resolved, if possible, to soothe and flatter the maniac, with a view of gaining time and of getting him to postpone his self-imposed task beyond the midnight hour. I would persuade him to talk of his last picture, of his brother artists, of his early days at Rivoli--of anything, that would divert his attention from me, and delay the fatal stroke. "Angelo, listen to me," I said, forcing my voice to adopt the slow deliberate tones I have heard hospital nurses employ in order that they may the more readily find lodgment in the disordered brain--"I am quite willing to die." Even while saying this, the incongruity of telling a falsehood when so near the point of death occurred to me, but I repeated the falsehood: "I am quite willing to die." "It is sweet to die for art," cried the artist gravely, as if the remark were an indisputable axiom. "I will not struggle with you." This at least was true, for the silken bands would not let me. "Daphne wished you not to struggle," remarked the madman. "But before I go, tell me--tell me--" I hesitated, not knowing what to say next. "Tell me--what has become of my brother George?" I cried, on the spur of the moment. "You must know," I added. "Your brother?" cried the artist, his eyes lighting up, as if some new chord in his memory were touched. "Your brother?" He was silent for a moment as if reflecting; and then looking all around, as if to ascertain that we were alone, he whispered: "You will never reveal to any one what I am going to tell you?" "It will not be within my power to reveal anything after you have finished with me," I replied with a smile that was the essence of ghastliness. "True, true; I am forgetting that." Taking up the stained poniard, he bent forward in his chair and whispered between his white teeth: "You see this red stain? _His!_ It is a twelvemonth old--a twelvemonth this very night." Making a stab at an imaginary figure, he looked at me, and said: "Wait. I'll show you how I did it presently."