midnight than there is there at midday. It is
like a city of the dead; the streets are glaring and desolate, and as
you pass it suddenly strikes you that this, too, is part of London.
Well, a year or two ago there was a doctor living there; he had set up
his brass plate and his red lamp at the very end of one of those
shining streets, and from the back of the house the fields stretched
away to the north. I don't know what his reason was in settling down in
such an out-of-the-way place, perhaps Dr. Black, as we will call him,
was a far-seeing man and looked ahead. His relations, so it appeared
afterwards, had lost sight of him for many years and didn't even know
he was a doctor, much less where he lived. However, there he was,
settled in Harlesden, with some fragments of a practice, and an
uncommonly pretty wife. People used to see them walking out together in
the summer evenings soon after they came to Harlesden, and, so far as
could be observed, they seemed a very affectionate couple. These walks
went on through the autumn, and then ceased; but, of course, as the
days grew dark and the weather cold, the lanes near Harlesden might be
expected to lose many of their attractions. All through the winter
nobody saw anything of Mrs. Black; the doctor used to reply to his
patients' inquiries that she was a 'little out of sorts, would be
better, no doubt, in the spring.' But the spring came, and the summer,
and no Mrs. Black appeared, and at last people began to rumor and talk
amongst themselves, and all sorts of queer things were said at 'high
teas,' which you may possibly have heard are the only form of
entertainment known in such suburbs. Dr. Black began to surprise some
very odd looks cast in his direction, and the practice, such as it was,
fell off before his eyes. In short, when the neighbours whispered about
the matter, they whispered that Mrs. Black was dead, and that the
doctor had made away with her. But this wasn't the case; Mrs. Black was
seen alive in June. It was a Sunday afternoon, one of those few
exquisite days that an English climate offers, and half London had
strayed out into the fields North, South, East, and West, to smell the
scent of the white May, and to see if the wild roses were yet in
blossom in the hedges. I had gone out myself early in the morning, and
had had a long ramble, and somehow or other, as I was steering
homeward, I found myself in this very Harlesden we have been talking
about. To be exac