s something here beyond a jest! He kept his head admirably, in
spite of some excitement, for in addition to compassion, the instincts of
the chase were roused within him.

Bosinney walked right out into the thoroughfare--a vast muffled
blackness, where a man could not see six paces before him; where, all
around, voices or whistles mocked the sense of direction; and sudden
shapes came rolling slow upon them; and now and then a light showed like
a dim island in an infinite dark sea.

And fast into this perilous gulf of night walked Bosinney, and fast after
him walked George. If the fellow meant to put his 'twopenny' under a
'bus, he would stop it if he could! Across the street and back the
hunted creature strode, not groping as other men were groping in that
gloom, but driven forward as though the faithful George behind wielded a
knout; and this chase after a haunted man began to have for George the
strangest fascination.

But it was now that the affair developed in a way which ever afterwards
caused it to remain green in his mind. Brought to a stand-still in the
fog, he heard words which threw a sudden light on these proceedings.
What Mrs. Soames had said to Bosinney in the train was now no longer
dark. George understood from those mutterings that Soames had exercised
his rights over an estranged and unwilling wife in the greatest--the
supreme act of property.

His fancy wandered in the fields of this situation; it impressed him; he
guessed something of the anguish, the sexual confusion and horror in
Bosinney's heart. And he thought: 'Yes, it's a bit thick! I don't
wonder the poor fellow is half-cracked!'

He had run his quarry to earth on a bench under one of the lions in
Trafalgar Square, a monster sphynx astray like themselves in that gulf of
darkness. Here, rigid and silent, sat Bosinney, and George, in whose
patience was a touch of strange brotherliness, took his stand behind. He
was not lacking in a certain delicacy--a sense of form--that did not
permit him to intrude upon this tragedy, and he waited, quiet as the lion
above, his fur collar hitched above his ears concealing the fleshy
redness of his cheeks, concealing all but his eyes with their sardonic,
compassionate stare. And men kept passing back from business on the way
to their clubs--men whose figures shrouded in cocoons of fog came into
view like spectres, and like spectres vanished. Then even in his
compassion George's Quilpish humour broke