man Toddleham, in his dingy office in Barristers'
Hall.

CHAPTER IX

Daybreak found me still wandering in the streets, haunted by the
fear that the police might already be upon my track and furious at
the thought that one foolish step should have changed me from a
prosperous and powerful member of the bar into a fugitive. Often
in earlier days I had pitied the wretches who would come slinking
into our office after nightfall, empty their pockets of gold and
notes--taken often, no doubt, by force or fraud from others--and
pour it out before us, begging for our aid to save them from
punishment. It seemed incredible to me that human beings should
have staked their liberty and often their lives for a few wretched
dollars. Outcasts, they skulked through existence, forced, once
they had begun, to go on and on committing crimes--on the one hand
to live, and on the other to pay tribute to Gottlieb and myself,
who alone stood between them and jail. How they had cringed to
us. We were their masters, cracking the lash of blackmail across
their shoulders and sharing equally, if invisibly, in their crimes!
And how I had scorned them--fools, as they seemed to me, to take
such desperate chances! Yet, as the sun rose, I now saw myself as
one of the beings whom I had so despised. We were no longer their
masters--they were our masters! Hawkins had us in his power. He
alone could prevent us from donning prison stripes.

Already the streets were beginning to stir. Wagons rumbled along
the pavements. Streams of people emerged from the caverns of the
east and trudged westward across the city. I circled the square
and entered it from the lower side. My big brick mansion, with
its stone trimmings--the home where I had held my revels and
entertained my friends, where I had worked and slept--was but a
stone's throw away. I strained my eyes to detect any signs of the
police; but the street was empty. Then, pulling my hat down upon
my head, I turned up my coat-collar and, glancing from side to
side, hurried across the square and let myself in.

The household still slept. The air was close and heavy with the
perfume of roses and the reek of dead cigars. On the floor of the
entrance hall lay a pair of woman's white gloves, palms upward.
Beyond, through the open doors of the dining-room, I could see the
uncleared table, littered over with half-empty bottles and glasses.
An upset chair reclined as it had fallen. Last night I h