h he was, perhaps, as happy a man as you could find in all
Surbiton.

But presently, in fact very soon, he became conscious of a disagreeable
feeling. A curious depression began to come upon him. He smoked
steadily, he gazed out at his garden green with turf and gay with
flowers, but his interest and pleasure in it were gone from him. He
wondered why. Presently he turned his head and looked over his shoulder.
What he was looking for he did not know; simply he felt obliged to do
what he did. He saw, of course, nothing but the curved wooden back of
the tea-house. He listened, he strained his ears, but he heard nothing
except the faint "ting-ting" of a tram-bell, and voices of some children
playing in a distant garden. His pipe had gone out. As he lit a match
and held it to his pipe bowl he saw that his hand was shaking. Whatever
had come to him? He was no drinker; he had always been a temperate man,
proud of his clear eyes and steady limbs, yet now he was shaking like a
drunkard. Perspiration burst out upon his forehead. He was seized by an
intense desire to get away from the tea-house, to get out into the open,
and he half rose from his chair, holding on to the arms and dropping
his pipe on the wooden floor. The tiny noise it made set his nerves in
a turmoil. He was afraid. But of what? He took his hands from the chair
and sat back, angry with himself, almost ashamed. That he should feel
afraid, here in his own garden, in his own cozy tea-house! It was
absurd, monstrous; it was like a sort of madness come upon him. But he
was determined not to give way to such nonsense. Just because he was
longing to go out of the tea-house he would remain in it. Let the
darkness come; he did not mind it; he was going to smoke his pipe.

Again he stared over his shoulder, and the sweat ran down his face. Had
not he heard something in the tea-house of his neighbor on the other
side of the wall? It seemed to him that he had rather felt a sound than
actually heard it. Nausea came upon him. He got up trembling. But still
he was ashamed of himself, and he would not go out of the tea-house.
Instead he went behind the table, stood close to the wooden wall, put
his ear to it and listened intently. He heard nothing; but when he was
standing against the wall his horror and fear increased until he could
no longer combat them. He turned sharply, knocked over a chair, and
hurried out into the garden. There for a moment he stood still. Under
the sky