there had been
miscarriage of justice. They must appeal; a petition too might be
started in the last event. The thing could--must be put right yet, if
only Larry and that girl did nothing!

He had no appetite, but the custom of dining is too strong. And while he
ate, he glanced with irritation at his fellow-members. They looked so at
their ease. Unjust--that this black cloud should hang over one blameless
as any of them! Friends, connoisseurs of such things--a judge among
them--came specially to his table to express their admiration of his
conduct of that will case. Tonight he had real excuse for pride, but he
felt none. Yet, in this well-warmed quietly glowing room, filled with
decorously eating, decorously talking men, he gained insensibly some
comfort. This surely was reality; that shadowy business out there only
the drear sound of a wind one must and did keep out--like the poverty and
grime which had no real existence for the secure and prosperous. He
drank champagne. It helped to fortify reality, to make shadows seem more
shadowy. And down in the smoking-room he sat before the fire, in one of
those chairs which embalm after-dinner dreams. He grew sleepy there, and
at eleven o'clock rose to go home. But when he had once passed down the
shallow marble steps, out through the revolving door which let in no
draughts, he was visited by fear, as if he had drawn it in with the
breath of the January wind. Larry's face; and the girl watching it! Why
had she watched like that? Larry's smile; and the flowers in his hand?
Buying flowers at such a moment! The girl was his slave-whatever he told
her, she would do. But she would never be able to stop him. At this
very moment he might be rushing to give himself up!

His hand, thrust deep into the pocket of his fur coat, came in contact
suddenly with something cold. The keys Larry had given him all that time
ago. There they had lain forgotten ever since. The chance touch decided
him. He turned off towards Borrow Street, walking at full speed. He
could but go again and see. He would sleep better if he knew that he had
left no stone unturned. At the corner of that dismal street he had to
wait for solitude before he made for the house which he now loathed with
a deadly loathing. He opened the outer door and shut it to behind him.
He knocked, but no one came. Perhaps they had gone to bed. Again and
again he knocked, then opened the door, stepped in, and clo