It was the end of everything!  With a muffled cry, “Oh, I can’t stand this!” Vandover threw himself from his bed, groping his way out into the sitting-room.  By this time he was only conscious of a suffering too great to be borne, everything else was blurred as in a thick mist.  For nearly an hour he stumbled about in the darkened room, bruising himself against the furniture, dazed, numb, trying in vain to find the drawer of the desk where he kept his father’s revolver.  At last his hand closed upon it, gripping it so tightly that the hundreds of little nicks and scratches made by the contact of the tacks and nails which he had hammered with it nipped and bit into his palm like the teeth of tiny mice.  A vague feeling of shame overcame him at the last moment:  he had no wish to be found sprawling upon the floor, dressed only in his night-gown.  He lit the gas and put on his bathrobe, drawing the cords securely about his waist and neck.

When he turned about to pick up the revolver again he found that his determination had weakened considerably, and he was obliged to reflect again upon the wreck of his life and soul before he was back once more to the proper pitch of resolution.  It was five minutes to two, and he made up his mind to kill himself when the clock struck the hour.  He spent the intervening moments in arranging the details of the matter.  At first he thought he would do it standing, but he abandoned that idea, fearing to strike his head against the furniture as he fell.  He was about to decide upon the huge leather chair, when the remembrance of his father’s death made that impossible.  He finally concluded to sit upon the edge of his bed, leaning a little backward so as not to fall upon the floor, and he dragged the bed out into the sitting-room, preferring somehow to die there.  For a moment the idea of lying at length upon the bed occurred to him, but in an instant he recoiled from it, horrified at the thought of the death that struck from above; no, it would be best to sit upon the edge of the bed, falling backward with the shot.  Then he wondered as to which it should be, his heart or his head; evidently the head was the better; there upon the right side in the little hollow of the temple, and the next moment he found himself curiously touching and pressing the spot with his fingers.  All at once he heard the little clicking noise that the clock makes a minute or so before the hour.  It was almost two; he sat down upon the edge of the bed, cocking the revolver, waiting for the clock to strike.  An idea came to him, and he looked at the calendar that stood at the right of the clock upon the top of the low bookcase.  It was the twelfth of April, Thursday; that, then, was to be the date of his death—­Thursday, April twelfth, at two in the morning, so it would read upon his gravestone.  For an instant the awfulness of the thing he was to do came upon him, and the next instant he found himself wondering if they still coursed jack-rabbits with greyhounds down at Coronado the way they used to do when he was there.  All at once the clock struck two, and at the very last instant a strange impulse to seat himself before the mirror came upon him.  He drew up a chair before it, watching his reflection intently, but even as he raised the revolver he suddenly changed his purpose without knowing why, and all at once crammed the muzzle into his mouth.  He drew the trigger.