old memories, so that he could not stir from his place. Oddly,
there seemed something unaccustomed about the darkness of the room, as if
the shadows he had summoned had changed the aspect of the walls. He was
conscious that on this night he was not altogether himself; fatigue, and
the weariness of sleep, and the waking vision had perplexed him. He
remembered how once or twice when he was a little boy startled by an
uneasy dream, and had stared with a frightened gaze into nothingness, not
knowing where he was, all trembling, and breathing quick, till he touched
the rail of his bed, and the familiar outlines of the looking-glass and
the chiffonier began to glimmer out of the gloom. So now he touched the
pile of manuscript and the desk at which he had worked so many hours, and
felt reassured, though he smiled at himself, and he felt the old childish
dread, the longing to cry out for some one to bring a candle, and show
him that he really was in his own room. He glanced up for an instant,
expecting to see perhaps the glitter of the brass gas jet that was fixed
on the wall, just beside his bureau, but it was too dark, and he could
not rouse himself and make the effort that would drive the cloud and the
muttering thoughts away.

He leant back again, picturing the wet street without, the rain driving
like fountain spray about the gas lamp, the shrilling of the wind on
those waste places to the north. It was strange how in the brick and
stucco desert where no trees were, he all the time imagined the noise of
tossing boughs, the grinding of the boughs together. There was a great
storm and tumult in this wilderness of London, and for the sound of the
rain and the wind he could not hear the hum and jangle of the trams,
and the jar and shriek of the garden gates as they opened and shut. But
he could imagine his street, the rain-swept desolate curve of it, as it
turned northward, and beyond the empty suburban roads, the twinkling
villa windows, the ruined field, the broken lane, and then yet another
suburb rising, a solitary gas-lamp glimmering at a corner, and the plane
tree lashing its boughs, and driving great showers against the glass.

It was wonderful to think of. For when these remote roads were ended one
dipped down the hill into the open country, into the dim world beyond the
glint of friendly fires. Tonight, how waste they were, these wet roads,
edged with the red-brick houses, with shrubs whipped by the wind against
one