he hid
his face even from the darkness, and groaned.

Not only had he lost faith in himself; there remained to him no
conviction, no trust, no hope of any kind. Intellectually, morally, he
had no support; shams, insincerities, downright dishonesties, had
clothed him about, and these were now all stripped away, leaving the
thing he called his soul to quiver in shamed nakedness. He knew
nothing; he believed nothing. But death still made him fearful.

With the first gleam of daylight, he flung himself out of his hot,
uncomfortable bed, and hastened to be a clothed mortal once more. He
felt better as soon as he had dressed himself and opened the window.
The night with its terrible hauntings was a thing gone by.

At breakfast he thought fixedly of Iris Woolstan. Perhaps Iris had not
seen Mrs. Toplady yet. Perhaps, at heart, she was not so utterly
estranged from him as he feared; something of his old power over her
might even now be recovered. It was the resource of desperation; he
must try it.

The waiter's usual respect seemed, this morning, covert mockery. The
viands had no savour; only the draught of coffee that soothed his
throat was good. He had a headache, and a tremor of the nerves. In any
case, it would have been impossible to get through the day in the usual
manner, and his relief when he found himself at the railway station was
almost a return of good spirits.

On reaching London, he made straight for West Hampstead. As he
approached Mrs. Woolstan's house, his heart beat violently. Without
even a glance at the windows, he rang the visitor's bell. It sounded
distinctly, but there came no response. He rang again, and again
listened to the far-off tinkling. Only then did he perceive that the
blinds at the lower windows were drawn. The house was vacant.

Paralysed for a moment, he stared about, as if in search of someone who
could give him information. Then, with sweat on his forehead, he
stepped up to the next door, and asked if anything was known of Mrs.
Woolstan; he learnt only that she had been absent for about ten days;
where she was, the servant with whom he spoke could not tell him. Were
the other neighbours likely to know?--he asked. Encouraged by a bare
possibility, he inquired at the house beyond; but in vain.

Fate was against him. He might as well go home and write a letter to
his committee at Hollingford.

Stay, could he not remember the school to which Leonard Woolstan had
been sent? Yes it was