I looked at her and saw that I could trust her.

“May I confess to you?” I asked.

“But of course!” she cried eagerly.  “I love confessions.”  She settled herself comfortably in her chair.  “Make it as horrible as you can,” she begged.

I picked a coal out of the fire with the tongs and lit my cigarette.

“I know that I’m getting old,” I said; “I know that my innocent youth is leaving me, because of the strange and terrible things which I find myself doing.”

“Oo-o-o-oh,” said Miss Middleton happily to herself.

“Last Monday, about three o’clock in the afternoon, I—­No, I can’t tell you this.  It’s too awful.”

“Is it very bad?” said Miss Middleton wistfully.

“Very.  I don’t think you—­Oh, well, if you must have it, here it is.  Last Monday I suddenly found myself reading carefully and with every sign of interest a little pamphlet on—­life insurance!”

Miss Middleton looked at me quickly, smiled suddenly, and then became very grave.

“I appeared,” I went on impressively, “to be thinking of insuring my life.”

“Have you done it?”

“No, certainly not.  I drew back in time.  But it was a warning—­it was the writing on the wall.”

“Tell me some more,” said Miss Middleton, after she had allowed this to sink in.

“Well, that was Monday afternoon.  I told myself that in the afternoon one wasn’t quite responsible, that sometimes one was only half awake.  But on Tuesday morning I was horrified to discover myself—­before breakfast—­doing dumb-bells!”

“The smelling-salts—­quick!” said Miss Middleton, as she closed her eyes.

“Doing dumb-bells.  Ten lunges to the east, ten lunges to the west, ten lunges—­”

“Were you reducing your figure?”

“I don’t know what I was doing.  But there I found myself on the cold oil-cloth, lunging away—­lunging and lunging and—­” I stopped and gazed into the fire again.

“Is that all you have to tell me?” said Miss Middleton.

“That’s the worst.  But there have been other little symptoms—­little warning notes which all mean the same thing.  Yesterday I went into the bank, to get some money.  As I began to fill in the cheque Conscience whispered to me, ’That’s the third five pounds you’ve had out this week.’”

“Well, of all the impertinence—­What did you do?”

“Made it ten pounds, of course.  But there you are; you see what’s happening.  This morning I answered a letter by return of post.  And did you notice what occurred only just now at tea?”

“Of course I did,” said Miss Middleton indignantly.  “You ate all the muffins.”

“No, I don’t mean that at all.  What I mean is that I only had three lumps of sugar in each cup.  I actually stopped you when you were putting the fourth lump in.  Oh yes,” I said bitterly, “I am getting on.”