aid.
"Is that right, when Dr. Jekyll is from home?"

"Quite right, Mr. Utterson, sir," replied the servant. "Mr. Hyde has a
key."

"Your master seems to repose a great deal of trust in that young man,
Poole," resumed the other musingly.

"Yes, sir, he do indeed," said Poole. "We have all orders to obey him."

"I do not think I ever met Mr. Hyde?" asked Utterson.

"O dear no, sir. He never _dines_ here," replied the butler. "Indeed, we
see very little of him on this side of the house; he mostly comes and
goes by the laboratory."

"Well, good-night, Poole."

"Good-night, Mr. Utterson."

And the lawyer set out homeward with a very heavy heart. "Poor Harry
Jekyll," he thought, "my mind misgives me he is in deep waters! He was
wild when he was young; a long while ago, to be sure; but in the law of
God there is no statute of limitations. Ay, it must be that; the ghost
of some old sin, the cancer of some concealed disgrace: punishment
coming, _pede claudo_, years after memory has forgotten and self-love
condoned the fault." And the lawyer, scared by the thought, brooded
awhile on his own past, groping in all the corners of memory, lest by
chance some Jack-in-the-Box of an old iniquity should leap to light
there. His past was fairly blameless; few men could read the rolls of
their life with less apprehension; yet he was humbled to the dust by the
many ill things he had done, and raised up again into a sober and
fearful gratitude by the many that he had come so near to doing, yet
avoided. And then, by a return on his former subject, he conceived a
spark of hope. "This Master Hyde, if he were studied," thought he, "must
have secrets of his own: black secrets, by the look of him; secrets
compared to which poor Jekyll's worst would be like sunshine. Things
cannot continue as they are. It turns me cold to think of this creature
stealing like a thief to Harry's bedside; poor Harry, what a wakening!
And the danger of it; for if this Hyde suspects the existence of the
will, he may grow impatient to inherit. Ay, I must put my shoulder to
the wheel--if Jekyll will but let me," he added, "if Jekyll will only
let me." For once more he saw before his mind's eye, as clear as a
transparency, the strange clauses of the will.

DR. JEKYLL WAS QUITE AT EASE

A fortnight later, by excellent good fortune, the doctor gave one of his
pleasant dinners to some five or six old cronies, all intelligent,
reputable men, and all judges