; you must not
be surprised, nor must you doubt my friendship, if my door is often shut
even to you. You must suffer me to go my own dark way. I have brought on
myself a punishment and a danger that I cannot name. If I am the chief
of sinners, I am the chief of sufferers also. I could not think that
this earth contained a place for sufferings and terrors so unmanning;
and you can do but one thing, Utterson, to lighten this destiny, and
that is to respect my silence." Utterson was amazed; the dark influence
of Hyde had been withdrawn, the doctor had returned to his old tasks
and amities; a week ago, the prospect had smiled with every promise of a
cheerful and an honoured age; and now in a moment, friendship, and peace
of mind, and the whole tenor of his life were wrecked. So great and
unprepared a change pointed to madness; but in view of Lanyon's manner
and words, there must lie for it some deeper ground.

A week afterwards Dr. Lanyon took to his bed, and in something less than
a fortnight he was dead. The night after the funeral, at which he had
been sadly affected, Utterson locked the door of his business room,
and sitting there by the light of a melancholy candle, drew out and set
before him an envelope addressed by the hand and sealed with the seal of
his dead friend. "PRIVATE: for the hands of G. J. Utterson ALONE, and in
case of his predecease to be destroyed unread," so it was emphatically
superscribed; and the lawyer dreaded to behold the contents. "I have
buried one friend to-day," he thought: "what if this should cost me
another?" And then he condemned the fear as a disloyalty, and broke the
seal. Within there was another enclosure, likewise sealed, and marked
upon the cover as "not to be opened till the death or disappearance
of Dr. Henry Jekyll." Utterson could not trust his eyes. Yes, it was
disappearance; here again, as in the mad will which he had long ago
restored to its author, here again were the idea of a disappearance
and the name of Henry Jekyll bracketted. But in the will, that idea had
sprung from the sinister suggestion of the man Hyde; it was set there
with a purpose all too plain and horrible. Written by the hand of
Lanyon, what should it mean? A great curiosity came on the trustee,
to disregard the prohibition and dive at once to the bottom of these
mysteries; but professional honour and faith to his dead friend were
stringent obligations; and the packet slept in the inmost corner of his
priva