"Is this why they wait and watch?" he asked himself with rather a
shaking heart, "for the time when I shall join them--or refuse to join
them? Does the decision rest with me after all, and not with them?"

And it was at this point that the sinister character of the adventure
first really declared itself, and he became genuinely alarmed. The
stability of his rather fluid little personality was at stake, he felt,
and something in his heart turned coward.

Why otherwise should he have suddenly taken to walking stealthily,
silently, making as little sound as possible, for ever looking behind
him? Why else should he have moved almost on tiptoe about the passages
of the practically deserted inn, and when he was abroad have found
himself deliberately taking advantage of what cover presented itself?
And why, if he was not afraid, should the wisdom of staying indoors
after sundown have suddenly occurred to him as eminently desirable? Why,
indeed?

And, when John Silence gently pressed him for an explanation of these
things, he admitted apologetically that he had none to give.

"It was simply that I feared something might happen to me unless I kept
a sharp look-out. I felt afraid. It was instinctive," was all he could
say. "I got the impression that the whole town was after me--wanted me
for something; and that if it got me I should lose myself, or at least
the Self I knew, in some unfamiliar state of consciousness. But I am not
a psychologist, you know," he added meekly, "and I cannot define it
better than that."

It was while lounging in the courtyard half an hour before the evening