*       *       *       *       *

When he stopped speaking, there was a moment of silence. Then I said
something. I think what I said was, "Very extraordinary!" He smiled, a strained, sarcastic smile. "Extraordinary?" he repeated,
with an interrogation point in his voice. "Your nerves were strained to the breaking-point," I said. "Your trouble
with the old rascal had driven you half distracted. Then there was all
that occultistic hodgepodge with the old Hindoo. And you were overworked
and run down, anyway. No wonder you dreamed dreams and saw visions. And
it may have been that there was some telepathic contact between you and
Wolansky, and when he had his apoplectic attack----"

The sarcastic smile deepened on Banaotovich's face. "So you have it all
explained, and I'm acquitted?" he inquired. "Acquitted?" I cried. "You were never even accused. If the state were to
bring action against every man who had a feeling that he would be
happier if someone else were out of the way, the state would have a big
job on its hands!" "Very true," Banaotovich assented icily. "I see I haven't got very far
with you yet. You are forcing me to continue my not very edifying
autobiography.--Did you know my father?" I remembered his father, and I remembered that he had not enjoyed the
best possible reputation. "I think I knew him," I said hesitantly. "He was a--a money-lender,
wasn't he?" "Don't spare my feelings," said Banaotovich bitterly. "He was a usurer,
and a cruel one. I had a feeling for years that his business was a
disgrace to the family, and I made no bones about telling him so. There
were ugly scenes. I thought several times of leaving home. Finally,
Father told me one day that since I didn't approve of the way he got his
money, he was doing me the favor of disinheriting me. I told him that
was all right with me, that I'd rather starve than live on money that
was stained with the blood of poor debtors. "I thought at the time that I meant it. But about that time I had become
interested in a young woman. I had never had much to do with the girls,
and very few of them seemed at all interested in me. But this one
appeared to like me, and when I made advances to her, she didn't repel
me. I am no connoisseur of female beauty, but I think she was unusually
attractive, and at that time I was half mad about her. Still waters run
deep, you know. "Well, she had me under her spell so completely that I changed my mind
about Father's money. I began to truckle to him, much as I had truckled
to Wolansky. I began to feel him out to find whether he had made a will. He was very cold and non-committal. Finally I asked him outright if he
would reconsider his decision to leave me penniless. He told me it was I
that had made the decision, not he, and that he had no use for
wishy-washy people that changed their minds like weather-cocks. He was
very sarcastic. I lost my temper and answered him back. We had a
terrible quarrel, and finally he--he struck me. I was twenty years old
and a bigger man than he. And I think no man ever had more stubborn
pride, at bottom, than I have. "It was the Wolansky thing all over again. The humiliation, the effort
at ingratiation, the failure, the long, eating, gnawing, growing hatred. And it--it ended the same way. The night of brooding that hardened into
a devilish decision, the vision of the long arm, growing, stretching,
crawling--but not so far this time, only through two walls and across
our own house. You remember that Father died of an apoplectic stroke,
just as Wolansky had done a year or two before." "Yes, I think I remember," I said in considerable embarrassment. The
thing _did_ begin to look uncanny. I was thoroughly sorry for the poor,
cracked fellow, but I would just as soon not have been alone with him in
that solitary drinking-place in the twilight. "Well?" he said, almost sharply. "Well, Banaotovich," I answered with a show of confidence, "you have had
a great deal of unhappiness, and you have my sympathy. This strange
faculty you have of anticipating deaths, like the night-owls and the
death-watch that ticks in the walls, has made these bereavements an
occasion of self-torment for you. I think you should see a
psychiatrist." "Anticipating--anticipating?" Banaotovich had gone back and was
repeating a word I had used, and as he repeated it he drummed madly on
the table with his fingers. "It's a curious coincidence that
'anticipating' is just the word my wife used when I told her about it." "You--told--your wife--what you have just told me?" I stammered. "Do you
think that was wise?" "I couldn't help it," he said with a catch in his throat. "I thought I
loved her, and I had to talk to somebody. I was miserable, and I had a
feeling that she might understand and be brought closer to me by
sympathy. Now that I think of it, I can see that I was an egregious
idiot, but I discovered long ago that we aren't rational beings after
all. We are driven or drawn by mysterious forces, and we go to our
destination because we can't help it. "My wife had always seemed a little timid with me. I never seemed to
have the gift of attracting people. And I don't know whether she would
ever have been interested in me at all if I hadn't used a little--a
little charm the Hindoo taught me. Perhaps that didn't have much to do
with it--but I had never been happy with her. However that may be, one
evening when she seemed unusually approachable, I had just the same
impulse that I had when I met you here tonight, and I told her about
Wolansky and Father. She pooh-poohed it all just as you did. But she was
afraid. I could see that. She was more and more afraid of me as the days
went by. For a long time she tried to be cordial and natural in my
presence, but it was a sham and the poor thing couldn't keep it up. Each
of us knew as well what was in the mind of the other as if we had talked
the situation over frankly for hours. We reached the point where we
couldn't look each other in the face. No solitude could have been as
ghastly as that solitude of two people who shared a revolting secret. For I had convinced her that I was guilty. I had succeeded in doing what
I had set out to do, and I had ruined two lives in doing it. I have the
faculty, it seems, of poisoning whatever I touch. Only today, my wife
said to me----"

I started to my feet with a great rush of relief and thankfulness. "Ah,
your wife is alive, then?" I cried. "My wife is alive. That is--my _second_ wife is alive," he said, with a
horrible forced smile. I sank back gasping. "What did you do with your first wife, you dirty
hound?" I moaned in helpless indignation. *       *       *       *       *

He closed his eyes, and a wave of bitter triumph played about the
muscles of his mouth. "Have I convinced _you_ too, at last?" he said. Then I realized that I had been an insulting idiot. At worst, the man
before me was a pathological case, and he certainly belonged in an
asylum rather than in a prison.