``I shall go and dress for dinner,'' he announced in a
voice into which he intended some shade of sternness to
creep.

  At the door a final access of weakness impelled him to
make a further appeal.

  ``Aren't we being very silly?''

  ``A fool,'' was Don Tarquinio's mental comment as the door
closed on Egbert's retreat.  Then he lifted his velvet
forepaws in the air and leapt lightly on to a bookshelf
immediately under the bullfinch's cage.  It was the first
time he had seemed to notice the bird's existence, but he
was carrying out a long-formed theory of action with the
precision of mature deliberation.  The bullfinch, who had
fancied himself something of a despot, depressed himself of
a sudden into a third of his normal displacement; then he
fell to a helpless wingbeating and shrill cheeping.  He had
cost twenty-seven shillings without the cage, but Lady Anne
made no sign of interfering.  She had been dead for two
hours.

		      THE LOST SANJAK

  The prison Chaplain entered the condemneds cell for the
last time, to give such consolation as he might.

  ``The only consolation I crave for,'' said the condemned,
``is to tell my story in its entirety to some one who will
at least give it a respectful hearing.''

  ``We must not be too long over it,'' said the Chaplain,
looking at his watch.

  The condemned repressed a shiver and commenced.

  ``Most people will be of opinion that I am paying the
penalty of my own violent deeds.  In reality I am a victim
to a lack of specialization in my education and character.''

  ``Lack of specialization!'' said the Chaplain.

  ``Yes.  If I had been known as one of the few men in
England familiar with the fauna of the Outer Hebrides, or
able to repeat stanzas of Camons' poetry in the
original, I should have had no difficulty in proving my
identity in the crisis when my identity became a matter of
life and death for me.  But my education was merely a
moderately good one, and my temperament was of the general
order that avoids specialization.  I know a little in a
general way about gardening and history and old masters, but
I could never tell you off-hand whether `Stella van der
Loopen' was a chrysanthemum or a heroine of the American War
of Independence, or something by Romney in the Louvre.''

  The Chaplain shifted uneasily in his seat.  Now that the
alternatives had been suggested they all seemed dreadfully
possible.

  ``I fell in love, or thought I did, with the local
doctor's wife,'' continued the condemned.  ``Why I should
have done so, I cannot say, for I do not remember that she
possessed any particular attractions of mind or body.  On
looking back at past events it seems to me that she must
have been distinctly ordinary, but I suppose the doctor had
fallen in love with her once, and what man has done man can
do.  She appeared to be pleased with the attentions which I
paid her, and to that extent I suppose I might say she
encouraged me, but I think she was honestly unaware that I
meant anything more than a little neighbourly interest.
When one is face to face with Death one wishes to be just.''

  The Chaplain murmured approval.  ``At any rate, she was
genuinely horrified when I took advantage of the doctor's
absence one evening to declare what I believed to be my
passion.  She begged me to pass out of her life and I could
scarcely do otherwise than agree, though I hadn't the
dimmest idea of how it was to be done.  In novels and plays
I knew it was a regular occurrence, and if you mistook a
lady's sentiments or intentions you went off to India and
did things on the frontier as a matter of course.  As I
stumbled along the doctor's carriage-drive I had no very
clear idea as to what my line of action was to be, but I had
a vague feeling that I must look at the _Times_ Atlas before
going to bed.  Then, on the dark and lonely highway, I came
suddenly on a dead body.''

  The Chaplain's interest in the story visibly quickened.

  ``Judging by the clothes it wore the corpse was that of a
Salvation Army captain.  Some shocking accident seemed to
have struck him down, and the head was crushed and battered
out of all human semblance.  Probably, I thought, a
motor-car fatality; and then, with a sudden overmastering
insistence, came another thought, that here was a remarkable
opportunity for losing my identity and passing out of the
life of the doctor's wife for ever.  No tiresome and risky
voyage to distant lands, but a mere exchange of clothes and
identity with the unknown victim of an unwitnessed accident.