I was beginning to wonder how it was that I felt such an absolute conviction of being alone, and it was then, I believe, that in this solitude that had descended upon my soul I seemed to see the shape of an approaching Nemesis.  It is permitted to no man to break with his past, with the past of his kind, and to throw away the treasure of his future.  I began to suspect I had gained nothing; I began to understand that even such a catastrophe was possible.  I sat down in the nearest chair.  Then my fear passed away.  The room was filling; it hummed with excited voices.  “Churchill!  No better than the others,” I heard somebody saying.  Two men had stopped talking.  They were middle-aged, a little gray, and ruddy.  The face of one was angry, and of the other sad.  “He wanted only to be found out.  What a fall in the mud.”  “No matter,” said the other, “one is made a little sad.  He stood for everything I had been pinning my faith to.”  They passed on.  A brazen voice bellowed in the distance.  “The greatest fall of any minister that ever was.”  A tall, heavy journalist in a white waistcoat was the centre of a group that turned slowly upon itself, gathering bulk.  “Done for—­stood up to the last.  I saw him get into his brougham.  The police had a job....  There’s quite a riot down there....  Pale as a ghost.  Gurnard?  Gurnard magnificent.  Very cool and in his best form.  Threw them over without as much as a wink.  Outraged conscience speech.  Magnificent.  Why it’s the chance of his life.” ...  And then for a time the voices and the faces seemed to pass away and die out.  I had dropped my paper, and as I stooped to pick it up the voices returned.

—­“Granger ...  Etchingham Granger....  Sister is going to marry Gurnard.”

I got on to my hands and knees to pick up the paper, of course.  What I did not understand was where the water came from.  Otherwise it was pretty clear.  Somebody seemed to be in a fit.  No, he wasn’t drunk; look at his teeth.  What did they want to look at his teeth for; was he a horse?

* * * * *

It must have been I that was in the fit.  There were a lot of men round me, the front row on their knees—­holding me, some of them.  A man in a red coat and plush breeches—­a waiter—­was holding a glass of water; another had a small bottle.  They were talking about me under their breaths.  At one end of the horseshoe someone said: 

“He’s the man who....”  Then he caught my eye.  He lowered his voice, and the abominable whisper ran round among the heads.  It was easy to guess:  “the man who was got at.”  I was to be that for the rest of my life.  I was to be famous at last.  There came the desire to be out of it.

I struggled to my feet.

Someone said:  “Feel better now?” I answered:  “I—­oh, I’ve got to go and see....”

It was rather difficult to speak distinctly; my tongue got in the way.  But I strove to impress the fool with the idea that I had affairs that must be attended to—­that I had private affairs.