f the horseshoe someone said:

"He's the man who...." Then he caught my eye. He lowered his voice, and
the abominable whisper ran round among the heads. It was easy to guess:
"the man who was got at." I was to be that for the rest of my life. I
was to be famous at last. There came the desire to be out of it.

I struggled to my feet.

Someone said: "Feel better now?" I answered: "I--oh, I've got to go and
see...."

It was rather difficult to speak distinctly; my tongue got in the way.
But I strove to impress the fool with the idea that I had affairs that
must be attended to--that I had private affairs.

"You aren't fit. Let me...."

I pushed him roughly aside--what business was it of his? I slunk hastily
out of the room. The others remained. I knew what they were going to
do--to talk things over, to gabble about "the man who...."

It was treacherous walking, that tessellated pavement in the hall.
Someone said: "Hullo, Granger," as I passed. I took no notice.

Where did I wish to go to? There was no one who could minister to me;
the whole world had resolved itself into a vast solitary city of closed
doors. I had no friend--no one. But I must go somewhere, must hide
somewhere, must speak to someone. I mumbled the address of Fox to a
cabman. Some idea of expiation must have been in my mind; some idea of
seeing the thing through, mingled with that necessity for talking to
someone--anyone.

I was afraid too; not of Fox's rage; not even of anything that he could
do--but of the sight of his despair. He had become a tragic figure.

I reached his flat and I had said: "It is I," and again, "It is I," and
he had not stirred. He was lying on the sofa under a rug, motionless as
a corpse. I had paced up and down the room. I remember that the pile of
the carpet was so long that it was impossible to walk upon it easily.
Everything else in the room was conceived in an exuberance of luxury
that now had something of the macabre in it. It was that now--before, it
had been unclean. There was a great bed whose lines suggested sinking
softness, a glaring yellow satin coverlet, vast, like a sea. The walls
were covered with yellow satin, the windows draped with lace worth a
king's ransom, the light was softened, the air dead, the sounds hung
slumbrously. And, in the centre of it, that motionless body. It stirred,
pivoted on some central axis beneath the rug, and faced me sitting.
There was no look of inquiry in the bloodshot eyes--the