A narrator says that years before writing "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," Robert Louis Stevenson wrote a story about good and evil at war within a man. On Christmas Day, the solitary Markheim watches the maid leave a shopkeeper alone in his shuttered store. Markheim knocks, explaining that he must buy a present for his fiancée. The avaricious shopkeeper looks away and Markheim commits a violent crime. Now, he must find the man's money before the maid returns. At first he feels anguish and despair, then he searches. A stranger enters the room and offers a bargain. Does the stranger's identity matter, and will Markheim take the deal? The bell rings at the door; the maid has returned.
—<jhailey@hotmail.com>