ittle in front of
him with another girl. She beckoned him, leading the way through
numerous by-streets. Something in the sound of certain footsteps told
him he was being followed; his reason warned him away, yet he could
not but follow. And in the shop below and on the stairs of the low
eating-house where they had led him, loud voices were heard and
tramping of feet. Instantly he guessed the truth, and drew the
furniture across the doorway. The window was over twenty feet from
the ground, but he might reach the water-butt. He jumped from the
window-sill, falling into the water, out of which he succeeded in
drawing himself; hence he crawled along the wall, dropped into the
lane, hearing his pursuers shouting to him from the window. There
were only a few children in the lane; he sped quickly past, gained a
main street, hailed a cab, and was driven safely to the Temple.

He flung off his shoes, which were full of water; his trousers were
soaking, and having rid himself of them, he wrapped himself in a
dressing-gown, and went into the sitting-room in his slippers. It was
the same as when it was Frank's room. There was the grand piano and
the slender brass lamps; he had lit none, but stood uncertain, his
bed-room candle in his hand. And listening, he could hear London
along the Embankment--all occasional cry, the rattle of a cab, the
hollow whistle of a train about to cross the bridge at Blackfriars,
the shrill whistle of a train far away in the night. He had escaped
from his pursuers, but not from himself.

"How horribly lonely it is here," he muttered. Then he thought of how
narrowly he had escaped disgraceful exposure of his infamy. "If those
fellows had got hold of my name it would have been in the papers the
day after to-morrow. What a fool I am! why do I risk so much? and for
what?" He turned from the memory as from sight of some disgustful
deformity or disease. Going to the mirror he studied his face for
some reflection of the soul; but unable to master his feelings, in
which there was at once loathing and despair, he threw open the
window and walked out of the suffocating room into the sultry
balcony.

It was hardly night; the transparent obscurity of the summer midnight
was dissolving; the slight film of darkness which had wrapped the
world was evanescent. "Is it day or night?" he asked. "Oh, it is day!
another day has begun; I escaped from my mortal enemies, but not from
the immortal day. Like a gray beast it c