My pen is weak.  I am weary.  I am waiting for Hobart.  Perhaps I shall not last.  When he comes I want him to know my story.  What he knows already will not hurt repeating.  It is well that man shall have it; it may be that we shall both fail-there is no telling; but if we do the world can profit by our blunders and guide itself—­perhaps to the mastery of the phenomenon that controls the Blind Spot.

I ask you to bear with me.  If I make a few mistakes or I am a bit loose, remember the stress under which I am writing.  I shall try to be plain so that all may follow.

VI

CHICK WATSON

Now to go back.

In due time we were both of us graduated from college.  I went into the law and Hobart into engineering.  We were both successful.  There was not a thing to foreshadow that either of us was to be jerked from his profession.  There was no adventure, but lots of work and reward in proportion.

Perhaps I was a bit more fortunate.  I was in love and Hobart was still a confirmed bachelor.  It was a subject over which he was never done joking.  It was not my fault.  I was innocent.  If the blame ran anywhere it would have to be placed upon that baby sister of his.

It happened as it happened since God first made the maiden.  One autumn Hobart and I started off for college.  We left Charlotte at the gate a girl of fifteen years and ten times as many angles.  I pulled one of her pigtails, kissed her, and told her I wanted her to get pretty.  When we came home next summer I went over to pull the other pigtail.  I did not pull it.  I was met by the fairest young woman I had ever looked on.  And I could not kiss her.  Seriously, was I to blame?

Now to the incident.

It was a night in September.  Hobart had completed his affairs and had booked passage to South America.  He was to sail next morning.  We had dinner that day with his family, and then came up to San Francisco for a last and farewell bachelor night.  We could take in the opera together, have supper at our favourite cafe, and then turn in.  It was a long hark back to our childhood; but for all that we were still boys together.

I remember that night.  It was our favourite opera—­“Faust.”  It was the one piece that we could agree on.  Looking back since, I have wondered at the coincidence.  The old myth of age to youth and the subcurrent of sin with its stalking, laughing, subtle Mephistopheles.  It is strange that we should have gone to this one opera on this one evening.  I recall our coming out of the theatre; our minds thrilling to the music and the subtle weirdness of the theme.

A fog had fallen—­one of those thick, heavy, grey mists that sometimes come upon us in September.  Into its sombre depths the crowd disappeared like shadows.  The lights upon the streets blurred yellow.  At the cold sheer contact we hesitated upon the pavement.