Is existence bearable in such a condition? Even now, the sliding back into lower and lower form continues. It will not be long before I am no longer even the ape-thing I appear. Perhaps the serum will carry me back through the ages until I am the slimy sea-crawler from which all life had its beginning. Oh, God!

And as if in answer to that name, comes the memory of what still remains in a drawer of my table. Arsenic—not an easy death, but a quick one. So shall I die, for if ever a creature was justified in taking its own life, that creature is myself.

I will leave this journal as an account of what has happened, and as a warning to others. The formulas for my serums and all that pertains to them I will destroy. Never shall another scientist meet with my fate if I can order it otherwise. There, the papers are flaming in the grate. Now for the arsenic—so much, in a glass of water—farewell!

[Here the journal ends.]

A Suitor from the Shades – Greye La Spina

-1-

Check.” Father Rooney chuckled deep in his throat and lifted his hand from the knight that had just made an unexpected foray among his opponent’s pieces.

The old doctor leaned over the board to study the situation carefully. “It does look as though you had me,” he admitted unwillingly. “Well, next time you may not have such good luck.”

“Luck?” queried the priest softly, a whimsical smile curving his lips.

“Poor papa! You are always beating him, Father,” reproached a soft voice from the other end of the room.

The floor lamp illuminated a narrow circle about the chess players and but dimly disclosed a little figure that pressed against the curtain at the open window as though to escape observation from without as well as from within. Against the wall behind her the polished surface of a pair of crutches caught the light in long lines. It was characteristic of Clare that she should put unpleasant things behind her.

The face she turned occasionally toward the chess players disclosed singular beauty, even in the softly diffused light of the big lamp. One saw dark, sensitive eyes and felt the tenderness of the habitual gentle smile that made her expression so attractive. Her low forehead was shaded by light brown hair that fell over her small ears and was knotted loosely at the nape of a slender neck. But Clare’s real beauty lay in the spirituality that beamed from her eyes.