He stared into the eyes of the man opposite to him, and his voice died away in his throat.

When, immediately afterward, he found himself walking hurriedly toward Kensington High Street the sweat was pouring down his face.

XII

One night of that autumn, driven by an overmastering impulse, Evelyn Malling set out toward Kensington.  He felt that he must know something more of the matter between Marcus Harding and Henry Chichester.  Stepton still kept silence.  Malling had not approached him.  But why should he not call upon Chichester, an acquaintance, almost a friend?  It was true that he had resolved, having put the affair into Stepton’s hands, to wait.  It had come to this, then, to-night that he could be patient no longer?  As he stood at the corner of Hornton Street, he asked himself that question.  He drew out his watch.  It was already past eleven, an unholy hour for an unannounced visit.  But slowly he turned into Hornton Street, slowly went down that quiet thoroughfare till he was opposite to the windows of the curate’s sitting-room.  A light shone in one of them.  The rest of the house was dark.  Even the fanlight above the small front door displayed no yellow gleam.  No doubt the household had retired to rest and Henry Chichester was sitting up alone.  A rap would probably bring him down to open to his nocturnal visitor.  But now Malling bethought himself seriously of the lateness of the hour, and paced slowly up and down, considering whether to seek speech of the curate or to abandon that idea and return to Cadogan Square.  As in his mental debate he paused once more opposite to the solitary gleam in the first-floor window, an incident occurred which startled him, and gave a new bent to his thoughts.  It was this:  The light in the window was obscured for a moment as if by some solid body passing before it.  Then the window was violently thrown up, the large figure of a man, only vaguely perceived by Malling, appeared at it, and a choking sound dropped out into the night.  The man seemed to be leaning out as if in an effort to fill his lungs with air, or to obtain the relief of the cool night wind for his distracted nerves.  His attitude struck Malling as peculiar and desperate.  Suddenly he moved.  The light showed, and Malling saw for an instant a second figure, small, slight, commanding.  The big man seemed to be sucked back toward the center of the room.  Down came the window; the tranquil gleam of the light shone as before; then abruptly all was dark.

Malling realized at once what was happening in the curate’s lodgings.  As he paused, gazing at the dark house, he knew that the miserable Marcus Harding was within, constrained to endure the observation which, to use his own hideous but poignant phrase, was “eating him away.”  It was he who had appeared at the window, like a tortured being endeavoring to escape into the freedom of the night.  It was Henry Chichester who had followed him, who had drawn him back, who had plunged him into darkness.