Page:Weird Tales v01n01 (1923-03).djvu/137

136 whether I am alive tomorrow morning, or dead.


 * "A love motive? Yes. But there is also something else—something equally potent to me, however weak and flimsy it may appear to others. I loved and do still love a girl whom I have known from childhood, but always there has been this thing that stood between us, and which is chiefly accountable for what I am about to do. It is not drink—nor gambling, nor hereditary disease.


 * "It is a Curiosity. An awful, overwhelming, unconquerable Curiosity. As far back as I can remember, I've had a terrible desire to know what follows death. As I grew up, this craving increased until it was a positive mania. I devoured every book on theosophy and kindred subjects I could lay hands on; I attended meetings of psychic societies; at college my avidity for psychology was remarked by everybody. At length I had reached the point where I yearned to tear aside the black veil of death and discover her secret. Why wait? I asked myself. Since you are bound to go some day, why not go now?


 * "One day I half-playfully voiced some such sentiment to her. It led to a dispute, which led to a violent quarrel; and that night Sheshe [sic] left the town where we both lived.


 * "I traced her as far as Chicago, and here I have lost her. For three years now I have searched the city for her, but not a trace have I found. And so I have given it up. It is hopeless. I shall never see her again.


 * "Like myself, she is alone in the world, but, unlike me, she is very poor. And somewhere in this great, monstrous city she is living even as I write these words—perhaps miles away—perhaps in the next block—perhaps . . . God alone knows, and God protect her!"

He stopped, put down his pencil, and placed his hand before his eyes. Thus he sat for several minutes. The yellow gas flames flickered weirdly at either side of the shoddy bureau; the clangor of a distant street car reached him faintly; a motor-truck rumbled heavily in the street below; a bickering couple jawed and wrangled ceaselessly in the next room.

After awhile he picked up the pencil and went on:


 * "Well anyway, I'm going to gratify that Curiosity. In a few hours I shall be in an unknown country I have always longed to explore. I've an idea I'll find happiness there I have never known on this earth.


 * "In any event, I shall leave some good front page stuff for the newspapers. It ought to make an interesting story: 'Rich young man, seeking his lost sweetheart in the great city, gives way to despair and kills himself.' If the girl is found next door, without money to buy food or pay her room rent—"

He arose abruptly with a sharp curse, and tore up what he had written. Then he turned off both gas jets, then turned them on full. andAnd [sic] then lay down upon the cot in a corner of the room. ..

"Lily May!" he murmured huskily. Then more hoarsely still, "Lily May—forgive—Lily May!"

. . . His body was writhing and twisting horribly now. His hands were clutching at the air, at his clothing, at the mattress; his legs were contracting and relaxing spasmodically. His face turned purple: he choked and gasped.

"Lily May" he cried in a stifling whisper, and attempted to lift his arms.

But he could not, and his lips ceased moving and his head fell back, and he lay very still.