causeless malady that baffled him. There were
nights when he suffered the unspeakable torture of a man who feels that
the absolute control over all his faculties, which he has taken for
granted, is slipping from him, and that his whole personality stands on
the verge of disintegration as on the edge of a bottomless pit.

For some weeks he hunted for Mr. Ricardo in vain. He tried all the
favoured spots which a considerate country sets aside for its
detractors and its lunatics so that they may express themselves freely,
without success. Mr. Ricardo seemed to have taken fright and vanished.
But one afternoon, returning from the hospital, Stonehouse met him by
accident, and followed him. He made no attempt to speak. He meant,
this time, to find out where the old man lived, and, if possible, to
come to his assistance, and his experience taught him the danger and
futility of a direct approach. He followed therefore at a cautious
distance that it was not always possible to maintain. Although it was
early in the afternoon a dense but drifting fog wrapped the city in its
dank folds, and the figure in front of him sometimes loomed up like a
distorted shadow and then in a moment plunged into a yellow pocket of
obscurity, and was lost. Then Stonehouse could only listen for his
footfalls, quick and irregular, echoing with an uncanny loudness in the
low vault of the fog.

Mr. Ricardo had evidently been speaking, for he carried the soap-box
slung over his shoulder, and he was in a great hurry. It was
extraordinary how fast the lame, half-starved old man could walk.

They crossed the park and over to Grosvenor Place. There was no doubt
that Mr. Ricardo knew where he was going, but it flashed upon
Stonehouse that he was not going home. There was something pressed and
sternly in earnest about the way he hurried, as though he had some
important appointment to keep and knew that he was already late. Once
Stonehouse had to run to keep him within hearing.

They went the whole length of Victoria Street. Stonehouse had been
physically tired out when he had started. Now he was not aware of
being tired at all. A gradually rising excitement carried him on,
unconscious of himself. He had no idea what he expected, but he knew
definitely that something deeply significant was about to happen to
them both, that they were running into some crisis.

Outside the Abbey the fog became impenetrable. The traffic had
stopped, and the li