When depression falls upon a man of usually even temperament it descends with a double weight.  The mercurial nature has a hundred counterbalancing devices to rid itself of gloom—­a sudden lifting of spirit, a memory of other moods lived through, other blacknesses dispersed by time; but the man of level nature has none of these.  Depression, when it comes, is indeed depression; no phase of mind to be superseded by another phase, but a slackening of all the chords of life.

It was through such a depression as this that he labored during three weeks, while no summons and no hint of remembrance came from Chilcote.  His position was peculiarly difficult.  He found no action in the present, and towards the future he dared not trust himself to look.  He had slipped the old moorings that familiarity had rendered endurable; but having slipped them, he had found no substitute.  Such was his case on the last night of the three weeks, and such his frame of mind as he crossed Fleet Street from Clifford’s Inn to Middle Temple Lane.

It was scarcely seven o’clock, but already the dusk was falling; the greater press of vehicles had ceased, and the light of the street lamps gleamed back from the spaces of dry and polished roadway, worn smooth as a mirror by wheels and hoofs.  Something of the solitude of night that sits so ill on the strenuous city street was making itself felt, though the throngs of people on the pathway still streamed eastward and westward and the taverns made a busy trade.

Having crossed the roadway, Loder paused for a moment to survey the scene.  But humanity in the abstract made small appeal to him, and his glance wandered from the passers-by to the buildings massed like clouds against the dark sky.  As his gaze moved slowly from one to the other a clock near at hand struck seven, and an instant later the chorus was taken up by a dozen clamorous tongues.  Usually he scarcely heard, and never heeded, these innumerable chimes; but this evening their effect was strange.  Coming out of the darkness, they seemed to possess a personal note, a human declaration.  The impression was fantastic, but it was strong; with a species of revolt against life and his own personality, he turned slowly and moved forward in the direction of Ludgate Hill.

For a space he continued his course, then, reaching Bouverie Street, he turned sharply to the right and made his way down the slight incline that leads to the Embankment.  There he paused and drew a long breath.  The sense of space and darkness soothed him.  Pulling his cap over his eyes, he crossed to the river and walked on in the direction of Westminster Bridge.

As he walked the great mass, of water by his side looked dense and smooth as oil with its sweeping width and network of reflected light.  On its farther bank rose the tall buildings, the chimneys, the flaring lights that suggest another and an alien London; close at hand stretched the solid stone parapet, giving assurance of protection.