It was the twelfth of April, Thursday; that, then, was to be the date of his death--Thursday, April twelfth, at two in the morning, so it would read upon his gravestone.

For an instant the awfulness of the thing he was to do came upon him, and the next instant he found himself wondering if they still coursed jack-rabbits with greyhounds down at Coronado the way they used to do when he was there.
All at once the clock struck two, and at the very last instant a strange impulse to seat himself before the mirror came upon him.

He drew up a chair before it, watching his reflection intently, but even as he raised the revolver he suddenly changed his purpose without knowing why, and all at once crammed the muzzle into his mouth.

He drew the trigger.
He heard no sound of a report; he felt no shock, but a great feebleness ran throughout his limbs, a relaxing and weakening of all his muscles; his eyes were open and he saw everything small and seemingly very far off as through the reversed end of an opera-glass.

Suddenly he fainted.
When Vandover came to himself again it was early morning.