It was nearly ten in the morning when Ambrose awakened and as he slowly recovered consciousness he could not immediately remember where he was. Realization came soon enough, however, and with it remorse. His head throbbed violently. He had, he recalled, as protection against his diffidence, drunk rather freely. Now he sought a water-bottle and poured out and swallowed one, two, three glasses of water.
It was not until he had bathed that it flashed across his mind that he had promised to call upon Auburn Six this morning. He had once been acquainted with a man whose constant preoccupation was the fear that he would be caught in some inextricable situation. To provide himself with a means of escape he had secured a small quantity of potassium cyanide which he wore in a ring on one of his fingers. His fears proved eventually to be well-grounded, for he met his death in a railroad accident, in which his ring-finger was pinioned under the wreckage in such a manner that he was unable to reach it and consequently was burned alive.
