'Be quick, sir,' cried Lord Arthur again, stamping his foot angrily
on the polished floor.

Mr. Podgers smiled, drew from his breast-pocket a small magnifying
glass, and wiped it carefully with his handkerchief

'I am quite ready,' he said.



CHAPTER II



Ten minutes later, with face blanched by terror, and eyes wild with
grief, Lord Arthur Savile rushed from Bentinck House, crushing his
way through the crowd of fur-coated footmen that stood round the
large striped awning, and seeming not to see or hear anything. The
night was bitter cold, and the gas-lamps round the square flared and
flickered in the keen wind; but his hands were hot with fever, and
his forehead burned like fire. On and on he went, almost with the
gait of a drunken man. A policeman looked curiously at him as he
passed, and a beggar, who slouched from an archway to ask for alms,
grew frightened, seeing misery greater than his own. Once he
stopped under a lamp, and looked at his hands. He thought he could
detect the stain of blood already upon them, and a faint cry broke
from his trembling lips.

Murder! that is what the cheiromantist had seen there. Murder! The
very night seemed to know it, and the desolate wind to howl it in