to gesticulate; he felt convulsed
with torment and shame, and it was a sorry relief to clench his nails
into his palm and strike the air as he stumbled heavily along, bruising
his feet against the frozen ruts and ridges. His impotence was hideous,
he said to himself, and he cursed himself and his life, breaking out into
a loud oath, and stamping on the ground. Suddenly he was shocked at a
scream of terror, it seemed in his very ear, and looking up he saw for a
moment a woman gazing at him out of the mist, her features distorted and
stiff with fear. A momentary convulsion twitched her arms into the ugly
mimicry of a beckoning gesture, and she turned and ran for dear life,
howling like a beast.

Lucian stood still in the road while the woman's cries grew faint and
died away. His heart was chilled within him as the significance of this
strange incident became clear. He remembered nothing of his violent
gestures; he had not known at the time that he had sworn out loud, or
that he was grinding his teeth with impotent rage. He only thought of
that ringing scream, of the horrible fear on the white face that had
looked upon him, of the woman's headlong flight from his presence. He
stood trembling and shuddering, and in a little while he was feeling his
face, searching for some loathsome mark, for the stigmata of evil
branding his forehead. He staggered homewards like a drunken man, and
when he came into the Uxbridge Road some children saw him and called
after him as he swayed and caught at the lamp-post. When he got to his
room he sat down at first in the dark. He did not dare to light the gas.
Everything in the room was indistinct, but he shut his eyes as he passed
the dressing-table, and sat in a corner, his face turned to the wall. And
when at last he gathered courage and the flame leapt hissing from the
jet, he crept piteously towards the glass, and ducked his head, crouching
miserably, and struggling with his terrors before he could look at his
own image.

To the best of his power he tried to deliver himself from these more
grotesque fantasies; he assured himself that there was nothing terrific
in his countenance but sadness, that his face was like the face of other
men. Yet he could not forget that reflection he had seen in the woman's
eyes, how the surest mirrors had shown him a horrible dread, her soul
itself quailing and shuddering at an awful sight. Her scream rang and
rang in his ears; she had fled away from him as