ed
me--something seizing, surprising, and revolting--this fresh disparity
seemed but to fit in with and to reinforce it; so that to my interest in
the man's nature and character there was added a curiosity as to his
origin, his life, his fortune and status in the world.

These observations, though they have taken so great a space to be set
down in, were yet the work of a few seconds. My visitor was, indeed, on
fire with sombre excitement.

"Have you got it?" he cried. "Have you got it?" And so lively was his
impatience that he even laid his hand upon my arm and sought to shake
me.

I put him back, conscious at his touch of a certain icy pang along my
blood. "Come, sir," said I. "You forget that I have not yet the pleasure
of your acquaintance. Be seated, if you please." And I showed him an
example, and sat down myself in my customary seat and with as fair an
imitation of my ordinary manner to a patient as the lateness of the
hour, the nature of my pre-occupations, and the horror I had of my
visitor, would suffer me to muster.

"I beg your pardon, Dr. Lanyon," he replied civilly enough. "What you
say is very well founded; and my impatience has shown its heels to my
politeness. I come here at the instance of your colleague, Dr. Henry
Jekyll, on a piece of business of some moment; and I understood ..." he
paused and put his hand to his throat, and I could see, in spite of his
collected manner, that he was wrestling against the approaches of the
hysteria--"I understood, a drawer...."

But here I took pity on my visitor's suspense, and some perhaps on my
own growing curiosity.

"There it is, sir," said I, pointing to the drawer, where it lay on the
floor behind a table and still covered with the sheet.

He sprang to it, and then paused, and laid his hand upon his heart; I
could hear his teeth grate with the convulsive action of his jaws; and
his face was so ghastly to see that I grew alarmed both for his life and
reason.

"Compose yourself," said I.

He turned a dreadful smile to me, and as if with the decision of
despair, plucked away the sheet. At sight of the contents he uttered one
loud sob of such immense relief that I sat petrified. And the next
moment, in a voice that was already fairly well under control, "Have you
a graduated glass?" he asked.

I rose from my place with something of an effort and gave him what he
asked.

He thanked me with a smiling nod, measured out a few minims of the red
tincture