e thought
before. I left him smiling thus, reached my house, and stood before it.

"Now I must tell you, and I rely absolutely on your regarding this as
said in the strictest, most inviolable confidence--"

"Certainly. Word of honor, and so forth!" said the professor, quickly and
sharply.

"I must tell you that Marcus Harding is a sinner, and not merely in the
sense in which all men are sinners. There have been recurring moments in
his life when he has committed actions which, if publicly known, would
ruin him in the eyes of the world and put an end to his career. As I
looked at myself standing before my house, I saw that I was hesitating
whether to go in with my misery, or whether to seek for it the hideous
alleviation of my beloved sin.

"Professor,"--it seemed to Stepton at this moment as if Chichester's
voice loomed upon him out of the darkness by which they were now
enshrouded,--"it has been said that nothing shocks a man so terribly as
the sight of his body-double; that to see what appears to be himself,
even if only standing at a window or sitting before a fire, causes
in a man a physical horror which seems to strike to the very roots of his
physical being. I looked now upon my soul-double, piercing the fleshly
envelop and it was my very soul that sweated and turned cold. For I
perceived the dreadful action which, if known, would certainly ruin me,
being committed by the spirit. The slavish body had not yet bowed down
and done its part; but it was about to obey the impulse of the spirit.
Slowly the body turned away from its home. The spirit was driving it. The
demon with the whip was at work in the night. I looked till the dawn
came. And only when at last my double crept, like a thief, into its
house, did sleep take me for a little while--sleep that was alive with
nightmare."

Chichester was silent. The professor heard him breathing quickly, saw
him, almost as a shadow just shown by the faint light that entered from
the street through the two small windows, clasp and unclasp his hands,
touch his forehead, his eyelids, move in his chair, like a man profoundly
stirred and unable to be at ease.

"When I woke," he continued, after a long pause, which the professor did
not break by a word or a movement, "I woke to combat. As I told you, I
had resolved at once to resign my curacy, and never to see that man
again. In the light of the morning I sat down to write my letter of
resignation; but I could not do it. A f