was nearly two, and the great curved thoroughfare was rather deserted.
Those few persons who were about had a curious aspect of wolves. Their
eyes were watchful; their gait denoted a ghastly readiness for pause,
for colloquy. Poor creatures! What was their _liaison_ with life? A
thing like a cry for help in the dark. The doctor longed to be a
miracle-worker, to lift up his hands, just there where he was by the
New Gallery, and to say, "Be ye healed!" He had a true love for every
human thing. And that love sometimes seared his heart, despite his
fervent faith and hope.

But now, as he pursued his way, a physical sensation intruded itself upon
his mind, and gradually excluded all his reflections. A sense of bodily
uneasiness came upon him, of a curious irritation and contempt, mingled
with fear. He at first ascribed it to the coffee he had imprudently
drunk at Valentine's flat, and to the strength of the two cigars he had
smoked, or to some ordinary, trifling cause of diet. But by the time he
crossed Oxford Street, and was in the desert of Vere Street, he felt
that there was a reason for his distress, outside of him.

"I am being followed," he said to himself. "I am being followed, and by
some utterly abominable person."

He went by the Chapel, and struck across to the right, not looking behind
him, but analyzing his feelings. Being strongly intuitive, he had no need
to turn his head. He knew now for certain the cause of his uneasiness.
Some dreadful human being was very near to him, full of hateful thoughts,
sinister recollections, possibly evil intentions. Something, the very
vibrations of the night air, it might be, carried, as a telegraph wire
conveys a message, the soul-aroma of this human being to the doctor. As
he walked on, not hurrying, he mutely diagnosed the heart of this unseen