sacrifice the trust reposed in me. Holding the letter thus, a face came
to memory. It was the third face of the three that had been painted in
anthracite. I could not tell where I had known it in life. It did not
seem as if it belonged to mortal time. I got up, opened the blinds for a
moment, and looked in the glass. I saw myself,--and yet,--yes, there was
a similitude to that I saw in memory; and then that strange, sad seeming
of soul-sense, that says, "Such as you are, you have been _somewhere_
for ages," overwhelmed and sent shakings of solemn ague to me.

"I'm getting ill," I thought; "I'll have no more of this."

I looked at a bottle of chloroform standing conveniently near, took it
up, and drew out the stopper. Lifting it to the light, I looked at it.
Quiet and calm and peaceful it reposed, unconscious of ill done or to be
done by itself. It was so innocent that I could not let it sin by
hurting me. I gazed again at my reflection in the glass, and a sudden
intuition taught me a startling truth.

It may have been, nay, must have been, the innocence born of the lucent
chloroform, reflected in my own face; but I was certain that the mirror
and the Axtell house contained two pictures that were the one like the
other. I smiled at the fancy. The illusion, if illusion it was, fled.
The picture on the wall never smiled from out the canvas. I took dark
winding-cloths and bound them about my head, covering the hair and
forehead, all the while watching the effect produced in the mirror. The
result was somewhat striking, it is true, but not of the agreeable
style. I unbound my frontlet, taking off the black phylactery, whose
memorable sentence, written in white letters, had been visible to myself
alone. A contrast suggested itself to me. I would try white; and so I
materialized the suggestion, and stood looking the least bit in the