His head, steady enough while he was only looking out of window, began
to swim before he had got to the bottom of a page. The last sentences
of the unfinished chapter alluded to a matter of fact which he had not
yet verified. In emergencies of any sort, he was a patient man and a
man of resource. The necessary verification could be accomplished by a
visit to the College of Surgeons, situated in the great square called
Lincoln's Inn Fields. Here was a motive for a walk--with an occupation
at the end of it, which only involved a question to a Curator, and an
examination of a Specimen. He locked up his manuscript, and set forth
for Lincoln's Inn Fields.

CHAPTER II.

When two friends happen to meet in the street, do they ever look back
along the procession of small circumstances which has led them both,
from the starting-point of their own houses, to the same spot, at the
same time? Not one man in ten thousand has probably ever thought of
making such a fantastic inquiry as this. And consequently not one man
in ten thousand, living in the midst of reality, has discovered that he
is also living in the midst of romance.

From the moment when the young surgeon closed the door of his house, he
was walking blindfold on his way to a patient in the future who was
personally still a stranger to him. He never reached the College of
Surgeons. He never embarked on his friend's yacht.

What were the obstacles which turned him aside from the course that he
had in view? Nothing but a series of trivial circumstances, occurring
in the experience of a man who goes out for a walk.