er did that?"

He looked at Chichester.

"When I was making my sermon I was engrossed by the thought of the
watching man."

Malling's idea had evidently laid a grip upon Chichester's mind.

"Tell me what the double's existence would be, according to you," he
said. "Tell me."

"You imagined the lesson learnt by the man so terrible that he fled away
into the night."

"Yes."

"Had he been strong enough to stay--"

"Strong enough!" interposed Chichester. "Better say, had he been obliged
to stay."

"Very well. Given that compulsion, in my imagination the double must have
learnt a lesson, too. If we can learn by contemplation, can we not, must
we not, learn by being contemplated? Life is permeated by reciprocity. I
can imagine another sermon growing out of yours of last Sunday."

"Yes, you are right--you are right," said Chichester.

"The double, then, in my imagination, would gradually become uneasy
under this secret observation. You described him as, his wife gone,
sitting down comfortably to write some account of the hidden doings
of his life, as, the writing finished, the diary committed to the
drawer and safely locked away, rising up to go to rest with a smile of
self-satisfaction. It seemed to me that, given my circumstance of the
persistent observation, a few nights later matters would have been very
different within that room. The hypocrite is happy, if he is happy at
all, when he is convinced that his hypocrisy is successful. Take away
that certainty, and he would be invaded by anxiety. Set any one to watch
him closely, he would certainly suffer, if he knew it."

"If he knew it! That is the point," said Chichester. "You put the man
watching the double in hiding."

"There are influences not yet fully understood which can traverse space,
which can touch not as a hand touches, but as unmistakably. I imagined
the soul of the double touched in this way, the waters troubled."

"Troubled! Troubled!"

It was Mr. Harding who had spoken, almost lamentably. His powerfully
shaped head now drooped forward on his breast.

"I imagined," continued Malling, "a sort of gradual disintegration
beginning, and proceeding, in the double--a disintegration of the soul,
if such a thing can be conceived of."

His piercing eyes went from Chichester to Harding.

"Or, no," he corrected himself. "Perhaps that is an incorrect description
of my--very imaginative--flight through speculation the other night.
Possibly I should s