There was a horrible fascination in them all.  He saw them at night, and they troubled his imagination in the day.  The Renaissance knew of strange manners of poisoning—­ poisoning by a helmet and a lighted torch, by an embroidered glove and a jewelled fan, by a gilded pomander and by an amber chain.  Dorian Gray had been poisoned by a book.  There were moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he could realize his conception of the beautiful.

CHAPTER 12

It was on the ninth of November, the eve of his own thirty-eighth birthday, as he often remembered afterwards.

He was walking home about eleven o’clock from Lord Henry’s, where he had been dining, and was wrapped in heavy furs, as the night was cold and foggy.  At the corner of Grosvenor Square and South Audley Street, a man passed him in the mist, walking very fast and with the collar of his grey ulster turned up.  He had a bag in his hand.  Dorian recognized him.  It was Basil Hallward.  A strange sense of fear, for which he could not account, came over him.  He made no sign of recognition and went on quickly in the direction of his own house.

But Hallward had seen him.  Dorian heard him first stopping on the pavement and then hurrying after him.  In a few moments, his hand was on his arm.

“Dorian!  What an extraordinary piece of luck!  I have been waiting for you in your library ever since nine o’clock.  Finally I took pity on your tired servant and told him to go to bed, as he let me out.  I am off to Paris by the midnight train, and I particularly wanted to see you before I left.  I thought it was you, or rather your fur coat, as you passed me.  But I wasn’t quite sure.  Didn’t you recognize me?”

“In this fog, my dear Basil?  Why, I can’t even recognize Grosvenor Square.  I believe my house is somewhere about here, but I don’t feel at all certain about it.  I am sorry you are going away, as I have not seen you for ages.  But I suppose you will be back soon?”

“No:  I am going to be out of England for six months.  I intend to take a studio in Paris and shut myself up till I have finished a great picture I have in my head.  However, it wasn’t about myself I wanted to talk.  Here we are at your door.  Let me come in for a moment.  I have something to say to you.”

“I shall be charmed.  But won’t you miss your train?” said Dorian Gray languidly as he passed up the steps and opened the door with his latch-key.

The lamplight struggled out through the fog, and Hallward looked at his watch.  “I have heaps of time,” he answered.  “The train doesn’t go till twelve-fifteen, and it is only just eleven.  In fact, I was on my way to the club to look for you, when I met you.  You see, I shan’t have any delay about luggage, as I have sent on my heavy things.  All I have with me is in this bag, and I can easily get to Victoria in twenty minutes.”