usk from their shop
doors, moving sentry-wise to and fro at the corners of the streets, yet
always vanishing silently like shadows at his near approach. And as the
inn invariably closed its doors at ten o'clock he had never yet found
the opportunity he rather half-heartedly sought to see for himself what
account the town could give of itself at night.

"--_a cause du sommeil et a cause des chats_"--the words now rang in his
ears more and more often, though still as yet without any definite
meaning.

Moreover, something made him sleep like the dead.

III

It was, I think, on the fifth day--though in this detail his story
sometimes varied--that he made a definite discovery which increased his
alarm and brought him up to a rather sharp climax. Before that he had
already noticed that a change was going forward and certain subtle
transformations being brought about in his character which modified
several of his minor habits. And he had affected to ignore them. Here,
however, was something he could no longer ignore; and it startled him.

At the best of times he was never very positive, always negative rather,
compliant and acquiescent; yet, when necessity arose he was capable of
reasonably vigorous action and could take a strongish decision. The
discovery he now made that brought him up with such a sharp turn was
that this power had positively dwindled to nothing. He found it
impossible to make up his mind. For, on this fifth day, he realised that
he had stayed long enough in the town and that for reasons he could only
vaguely define to himself it was wiser _and safer_ that he should leave.

And he found that he could not leave!

This is difficult to describe in words, and it was more by gesture and
the expression of his face that he conveyed to Dr. Silence the state of
impotence he had reached. All this spying and watching, he said, had as
it were spun a net about his feet so that he was trapped and powerless
to escape; he felt like a fly that had blundered into the intricacies of
a great web; he was caught, imprisoned, and could not get away. It was a
distressing sensation. A numbness had crept over his will till it had
become almost incapable of decision. The mere thought of vigorous
action--action towards escape--began to terrify him. All the currents of
his life had turned inwards upon himself, striving to bring to the
surface something that lay buried almost beyond reach, determined to
force his recognition of