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listed the lethal dose of arsenic as varying from one-tenth to one-half of a gram. By rough computation, he estimated that the two capsules contained a total of five grams.

SIX
    He followed his regular routine on Wednesday, attending all his classes, but he was no more a part of the life and activity that surrounded him than is the diver in his diving bell a part of the alien world in which he is submerged. All of his energies were turned inward, focused on the problem of beguiling Dorothy into writing a suicide note or, if that could not be contrived, finding some other way to make her death seem self-induced. While in this state of laboured concentration he unconsciously dropped the pretence of being undecided as to whether or not he would actually go through with his plans: he was going to kill her; he had the poison and he already knew how he was going to administer it; there was only this one problem left, and he was determined to solve it. At times during the day, when a loud voice or the chalk’s screech made him momentarily aware of his surroundings, he looked at his classmates with mild surprise. Seeing their brows contracted over a stanza in Browning or a sentence in Kant, he felt as though he had suddenly come upon a group of adults playing hop-scotch.
    A Spanish class was his last of the day, and the latter half of it was devoted to a short unannounced examination. Because it was his poorest subject, he forced himself to lower the focus of his concentration to the translating of a page of the florid Spanish novel which the class was studying.
    Whether the stimulus was the actual work he was doing or the comparative relaxation which the work offered after a day of more rigorous thinking, he could not say. But in the midst of his writing the idea came to him. It rose up fully formed, a perfect plan, unlikely to fail and unlikely to arouse Dorothy’s suspicion. The contemplation of it so occupied his mind that when the period ended he had completed only half the assigned page. The inevitable failing mark in the quiz troubled him very little. By ten o’clock the following morning Dorothy would have written her suicide note.
       
    That evening, his landlady having gone to an Eastern Star meeting, he brought Dorothy back to his room. During the two hours they spent there, he was as warm and tender as she had ever wished him to be. In many ways he liked her a great deal, and he was conscious of the fact that this was to be her last such experience.
    Dorothy, noticing his new gentleness and devotion, attributed it to the nearness of their wedding. She was not a religious girl, but she deeply believed that the state of wedlock carried with it something of holiness.
    Afterwards they went to a small restaurant near the campus. It was a quiet place and not popular with the students; the elderly proprietor, despite the pains he took to decorate his windows with blue and white crêpe paper and Stoddard pennants, was irascible with the noisy and somewhat destructive university crowd.
    Seated in one of the blue-painted wall booths, they had cheeseburgers and chocolate malteds, while Dorothy chattered on about a new type of bookcase that opened out into a full-size dining table. He nodded unenthusiastically, waiting for a pause in the monologue.
    ‘Oh, by the way,’ he said, ‘do you still have that picture I gave you? The one of me.’
    ‘Of course I do.’
    ‘Well let me have it back for a couple of days. I want to have a copy made to send to my mother. It’s cheaper than getting another print from the studio.’
    She took a green wallet from the pocket of the coat folded on the seat beside her. ‘Have you told your mother about us?’
    ‘No, I haven’t.’
    ‘Why not?’
    He thought for a moment. ‘Well, as long as you can’t tell your family until after, I thought I wouldn’t tell my mother. Keep it our secret.’ He smiled. ‘You haven’t told anyone, have you?’
    ‘No,’ she said. She was holding a few