I am not escaping from you but from the whole world.

If, by shooting me you can quicken my escape, you will do me the first and last favour which I am likely to ask from you." He posted his letter, settled himself in a corner of the carriage, and took his second dose of opium.

From that moment he recollected little more.

A confused whirl of hedges and woods, rattling stations, screaming and flashing trains, great red towns, white chalk cuttings; while the everlasting roar and rattle of the carriages shaped themselves in his brain into a hundred snatches of old tunes, all full of a strange merriment, as if mocking at his misery, striving to keep him awake and conscious of who and what he was.

He closed his eyes and shut out the hateful garish world: but that sound he could not shut out.