score or so of pages
before the end he came at last upon the name he was seeking, and turned
the page.

It was a likeness even more striking in its crudeness of ink and line
and paper than the most finished of portraits could have been. It
repelled, and yet it fascinated him. He had not for a moment doubted
Herbert's calm conviction. And yet as he stooped in the grass, closely
scrutinising the blurred obscure features, he felt the faintest surprise
not so much at the significant resemblance but at his own composure, his
own steady, unflinching confrontation with this sinister and intangible
adversary. The match burned down to his fingers. It hissed faintly in
the grass.

He stuffed the book into his pocket, and stared into the pale dial of
his watch. It was a few minutes after eleven. Midnight, then, would
just see him in. He rose stiffly and yawned in sheer exhaustion. Then,
hesitating, he turned his head and looked back towards the hollow. But
a vague foreboding held him back. A sour and vacuous incredulity swept
over him. What was the use of all this struggling and vexation. What
gain in living on? Once dead his sluggish spirit at least would find
its rest. Dust to dust it would indeed be for him. What else, in sober
earnest, had he been all his daily stolid life but half dead, scarce
conscious, without a living thought, or desire, in head or heart?

And while he was still gloomily debating within himself he had turned
towards home, and soon was walking in a kind of reverie, even his
extreme tiredness in part forgotten, and only a far-away dogged
recollection in his mind that in spite of shame, in spite of all his
miserable weakness, the words had been uttered once for all, and in all
sincerity, 'We DID win through.'

Yet a desolate and odd air of strangeness seemed to drape his unlighted
house as he stood looking up in a kind of furtive communion with its
windows. It affected him with that discomforting air of extreme and
meaningless novelty that things very familiar sometimes take upon
themselves. In this leaden tiredness no impression could be trustworthy.
His lids shut of themselves as he softly mounted the steps. It seemed a
needlessly wide door that soundlessly admitted him. But however hard he
pressed the key his bedroom door remained stubbornly shut until he
found that it was already unlocked and he had only to turn the handle.
A night-light burned in a little basin on the washstand. The room was
hung, a