, a nightmare not real! It
was ridiculous! That he--he should thus be bound up with things so black
and bizarre!

He had come by now to the Strand, that street down which every day he
moved to the Law Courts, to his daily work; his work so dignified and
regular, so irreproachable, and solid. No! The thing was all a
monstrous nightmare! It would go, if he fixed his mind on the familiar
objects around, read the names on the shops, looked at the faces passing.
Far down the thoroughfare he caught the outline of the old church, and
beyond, the loom of the Law Courts themselves. The bell of a fire-engine
sounded, and the horses came galloping by, with the shining metal, rattle
of hoofs and hoarse shouting. Here was a sensation, real and harmless,
dignified and customary! A woman flaunting round the corner looked up at
him, and leered out: "Good-night!" Even that was customary, tolerable.
Two policemen passed, supporting between them a man the worse for liquor,
full of fight and expletives; the sight was soothing, an ordinary thing
which brought passing annoyance, interest, disgust. It had begun to
rain; he felt it on his face with pleasure--an actual thing, not
eccentric, a thing which happened every day!

He began to cross the street. Cabs were going at furious speed now that
the last omnibus had ceased to run; it distracted him to take this
actual, ordinary risk run so often every day. During that crossing of
the Strand, with the rain in his face and the cabs shooting past, he
regained for the first time his assurance, shook off this unreal sense of
being in the grip of something, and walked resolutely to the corner of
his home turning. But passing into that darker stretch, he again stood
still. A policeman had also turned into that street on the other side.
Not--surely not! Absurd! They were all alike to look at--those fellows!
Absurd! He walked on sharply, and let himself into his house. But on
his way upstairs he could not for the life of him help raising a corner
of a curtain and looking from the staircase window. The policeman was
marching solemnly, about twenty-five yards away, paying apparently no
attention to anything whatever.

IV

Keith woke at five o'clock, his usual hour, without remembrance. But the
grisly shadow started up when he entered his study, where the lamp
burned, and the fire shone, and the coffee was set ready, just as when
yesterday afternoon Larry had stood out there ag