Self-consciousness no doubt multiplied my flattering assailants.
I have said that my nerves were shattered. I may have imagined
much and exaggerated the rest. Yet what truth there was in my
suspicions you shall duly see. I felt sure that I was followed
in the street, and my every movement dogged by those to whom I
would not condescend to turn and look. Meanwhile, I had not
the courage to go near my club, and the Temple was a place where
I was accosted in every court, effusively congratulated on the
marvellous preservation of my stale spoilt life, and invited right
and left to spin my yarn over a quiet pipe! Well, perhaps such
invitations were not so common as they have grown in my memory;
nor must you confuse my then feelings on all these matters with
those which I entertain as I write. I have grown older, and, I
hope, something kindlier and wiser since then. Yet to this day I
cannot blame myself for abandoning my chambers and avoiding my club.

For a temporary asylum I pitched upon a small, quiet, empty,
private hotel which I knew of in Charterhouse Square. Instantly
the room next mine became occupied.

All the first night I imagined I heard voices talking about me in
that room next door. It was becoming a disease with me. Either
I was being dogged, watched, followed, day and night, indoors and
out, or I was the victim of a very ominous hallucination. That
night I never closed an eye nor lowered my light. In the morning
I took a four-wheel cab and drove straight to Harley Street; and,
upon my soul, as I stood on the specialist's door-step, I could
have sworn I saw the occupant of the room next mine dash by me in
a hansom!