At moments, so profound was his feeling of insignificance that he hid his face even from the darkness, and groaned.

Not only had he lost faith in himself; there remained to him no conviction, no trust, no hope of any kind.  Intellectually, morally, he had no support; shams, insincerities, downright dishonesties, had clothed him about, and these were now all stripped away, leaving the thing he called his soul to quiver in shamed nakedness.  He knew nothing; he believed nothing.  But death still made him fearful.

With the first gleam of daylight, he flung himself out of his hot, uncomfortable bed, and hastened to be a clothed mortal once more.  He felt better as soon as he had dressed himself and opened the window.  The night with its terrible hauntings was a thing gone by.

At breakfast he thought fixedly of Iris Woolstan.  Perhaps Iris had not seen Mrs. Toplady yet.  Perhaps, at heart, she was not so utterly estranged from him as he feared; something of his old power over her might even now be recovered.  It was the resource of desperation; he must try it.

The waiter’s usual respect seemed, this morning, covert mockery.  The viands had no savour; only the draught of coffee that soothed his throat was good.  He had a headache, and a tremor of the nerves.  In any case, it would have been impossible to get through the day in the usual manner, and his relief when he found himself at the railway station was almost a return of good spirits.

On reaching London, he made straight for West Hampstead.  As he approached Mrs. Woolstan’s house, his heart beat violently.  Without even a glance at the windows, he rang the visitor’s bell.  It sounded distinctly, but there came no response.  He rang again, and again listened to the far-off tinkling.  Only then did he perceive that the blinds at the lower windows were drawn.  The house was vacant.

Paralysed for a moment, he stared about, as if in search of someone who could give him information.  Then, with sweat on his forehead, he stepped up to the next door, and asked if anything was known of Mrs. Woolstan; he learnt only that she had been absent for about ten days; where she was, the servant with whom he spoke could not tell him.  Were the other neighbours likely to know?—­he asked.  Encouraged by a bare possibility, he inquired at the house beyond; but in vain.

Fate was against him.  He might as well go home and write a letter to his committee at Hollingford.

Stay, could he not remember the school to which Leonard Woolstan had been sent?  Yes it was noted in his pocket-book; for he had promised to write to the boy.