wift physical decay that
arrested the lawyer's notice, as a look in the eye and quality of manner
that seemed to testify to some deep-seated terror of the mind. It was
unlikely that the doctor should fear death; and yet that was what
Utterson was tempted to suspect. "Yes," he thought; "he is a doctor, he
must know his own state and that his days are counted; and the knowledge
is more than he can bear." And yet when Utterson remarked on his
ill-looks, it was with an air of great firmness that Lanyon declared
himself a doomed man.

"I have had a shock," he said, "and I shall never recover. It is a
question of weeks. Well, life has been pleasant; I liked it; yes, sir, I
used to like it. I sometimes think if we knew all we should be more glad
to get away."

"Jekyll is ill too," observed Utterson. "Have you seen him?"

But Lanyon's face changed, and he held up a trembling hand. "I wish to
see or hear no more of Dr. Jekyll," he said in a loud, unsteady voice.
"I am quite done with that person; and I beg that you will spare me any
allusion to one whom I regard as dead."

"Tut-tut," said Mr. Utterson; and then, after a considerable pause,
"Can't I do anything?" he inquired. "We are three very old friends,
Lanyon; we shall not live to make others."

"Nothing can be done," returned Lanyon; "ask himself."

"He will not see me," said the lawyer.

"I am not surprised at that," was the reply. "Some day, Utterson, after
I am dead, you may perhaps come to learn the right and wrong of this. I
cannot tell you. And in the meantime, if you can sit and talk with me of
other things, for God's sake, stay and do so; but if you cannot keep
clear of this accursed topic, then, in God's name, go, for I cannot bear
it."

As soon as he got home, Utterson sat down and wrote to Jekyll,
complaining of his exclusion from the house, and asking the cause of
this unhappy break with Lanyon; and the next day brought him a long
answer, often very pathetically worded, and sometimes darkly mysterious
in drift. The quarrel with Lanyon was incurable. "I do not blame our old
friend," Jekyll wrote, "but I share his view that we must never meet. I
mean from henceforth to lead a life of extreme seclusion; 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