de, Preston shivered, and a sudden
weakness smote him at the joints.

The crowd on the pavement in front of the theatre melted away with
unexampled rapidity, in fact, seemed almost to waver and disappear as
if the _mise en scene_ had changed in some inexplicable way.

A hansom drove up, and Preston stepped into it heavily, glancing
drowsily askance at the driver as he did so.

Seated up there, barely visible in the gloom, the driver had an almost
grisly aspect, humped with waterproof capes, and with such a lean, white
face. Preston, as he glanced at him, shivered again.

The trap-door above him opened softly, and the colourless face peered
down at him curiously.

"Where to, sir?" asked the hollow voice.

Preston leaned back wearily. "Home," he replied.

It did not strike him as anything strange or unusual, that the driver
asked no questions but drove off without a word. He was very weary, and
he wanted to rest.

The sleepless hum of the city was abidingly in his ears, and the lamps
that dotted the misty pavements stared at him blinkingly all along the
route. The tall black buildings rose up grimly into the night; the faces
that flitted to and fro along the pavements, kept ever sliding past him,
melting into the darkness; and the cabs and 'buses, still astir in the
streets, had a ghostly air as they vanished in the gloom.

Preston lay back, weary in every joint, a drowsy numbness settling on
his pulse. He had faith in his driver: he would bring him safely home.

Presently they were at one of the wharves beside the river: Preston
could hear the gurgle of the water around the piles.

Not this way had he ever before gone homeward. He looked out musingly on
the swift, black stream.

"Just in time: we can go down with the tide," said a voice.

Preston would have uttered some protest, but this sluggishness
overpowered him: it was as if he could neither lift hand nor foot. The
inertia of indifference had penetrated into his bones.

Presently he was aware that he had entered a barge that lay close
against the wharf, heaving on the tide. And, as if it were all a piece
of the play, the lean old driver, with his dead-white face, had the oars
in his hands and stood quietly facing him, guiding the dark craft down
the stream.

The panorama of the river-bank kept changing and shifting in the most
inexplicable manner, and Preston was aware of a crowd of pictures ever
coming and going before his eyes: as if some subtle