"But, Martin, you oughtn't to work so hard.
You'll break down--"
"No fear of that," he replied, cheerfully."You can leave something on the sideboard for me."After another fluttering remonstrance, she went away, and the room was silent again.His arms rested upon the desk, and his head slowly sank between his elbows.When he lifted it again the clock on the mantel-piece had tinkled once.It was half-past seven.He took a sheet of note-paper from a box before him and began to write, but when he had finished the words, "My dear wife and Mamie," his fingers shook so violently that he could go no further.He placed his left hand over the back of his right to steady it, but found the device unavailing: the pen left mere zigzags on the page, and he dropped it.
He opened a lower drawer of the desk and took out of it a pistol; rose, went to the door, tried it once more, and again was satisfied of his seclusion.
Then he took the weapon in both hands, the handle against his fingers, one thumb against the trigger, and, shaking with nausea, lifted it to the level of his eyes.His will betrayed him; he could not contract his thumb upon the trigger, and, with a convulsive shiver, he dropped the revolver upon the desk.