They acted with the utmost precipitation or the utmost deliberation.

Some wound up their worldly affairs with businesslike precision before embarking on their timeless voyage, others jumped into the black gulf without, apparently, any premeditated intention, as if at the beckoning summons of some grisly invisible hand which they dared not disobey.

Barrant recalled the strange case of a wealthy merchant who had cut his throat on a Bank holiday and confessed before death that he had felt the same impulse on that day for years past.

He had whispered that the day marked to him such a pause in life's dull round that it seemed to him a pity to start again.
He had resisted the impulse for years, but it had waxed stronger with each recurring anniversary, and had overcome him at last.
Every suicide was a law unto himself.

Barrant willingly conceded that, but he could not so easily concede that a man like Robert Turold would put an end to his life just when he was about to attain the summit of that life's ambition.