ent, strode in silence from the
room, and consulted immediately with Puddock on the subject, who, after
a moment's reflection found it no more than chance medley.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

DREAMS AND TROUBLES, AND A DARK LOOK-OUT.

So there was no feud in the club worth speaking of but those of which
Dr. Sturk was the centre; and Toole remarked this night that Sturk
looked very ill--and so, in truth, he did; and it was plain, too, that
his mind was not in the game, for old Slowe, who used not to have a
chance with him, beat him three times running, which incensed Sturk, as
small things will a man who is in the slow fever of a secret trouble. He
threw down the three shillings he had lost with more force than was
necessary, and muttering a curse, clapped on his hat and took up a
newspaper at another table, with a rather flushed face. He happened to
light upon a dolorous appeal to those 'whom Providence had blessed with
riches,' on behalf of a gentleman 'who had once held a commission under
his Majesty, and was now on a sudden by some unexpected turns of
fortune, reduced, with his unhappy wife and five small children, to want
of bread, and implored of his prosperous fellow-citizens that charitable
relief which, till a few months since, it was his custom and pleasure to
dispense to others.' And this stung him with a secret pang of insecurity
and horror. Trifles affected him a good deal now. So he pitched down the
newspaper and walked across to his own house, with his hands in his
pockets, and thought again of Dangerfield, and who the deuce he could
be, or whether he had really ever, anywhere--in the body or in the
spirit--encountered him, as he used to feel with a boding vagueness he
had done. And then those accursed dreams: he was not relieved as he
expected by disclosing them. The sense of an ominous meaning pointing at
him in all their grotesque images and scenery, still haunted him.

'Parson Walsingham, with all his reading,' his mind muttered, as it
were, to itself, 'is no better than an old woman; and that knave and
buffoon, Mr. Apothecary Toole, looked queer, the spiteful dog, just to
disquiet me. I wonder at Dr. Walsingham though. A sensible man would
have laughed me into spirits. On my soul, I think he believes in
dreams.' And Sturk laughed within himself scornfully. It was all
affectation, and addressed strictly to himself, who saw through it all;
but still he practised it. 'If these infernal losses had not co