For some reason—for which he neither accounted, nor troubled to account to himself—the discomfited and vaguely uneasy young gentleman turned his steps towards the Vauxhall Bridge Road. Perhaps he still entertained a forlorn hope of somehow justifying himself, to himself and to Mrs Baxter, in his venture; perhaps a mere morbid desire, common enough in its attraction, to visit the spot of a murdered delusion impelled him. He felt sore, and at the same time unaccountably troubled. It seemed to him now that he had allowed himself to be convinced over readily. In any case it was his instinct to fulfil a promise to the letter, or to what his chivalrous conscience chose to consider the letter.
At the corner of Dorset Street, after what appeared to him an interminable groping down a murky sewer, he found the house he sought. The fog was so thick, that, peering over the area railings, he could distinguish few of its details; but he could just make out that it was a corner house of a long row, and superficially in nowise superior to its neighbours in general dullness and unattractiveness. Why should it be indeed? And then suddenly he observed that a bill was pasted within one of its shuttered windows.
He found the gate, opened it, and entered to read.
“To be let. Furnished. Apply etc.”
The name of a local house-agent was given at the foot.
Now what prompted him to the act Gilead never knew; but in a moment he had decided to procure the key of the house and enter to make an examination. On his difficult way to the address given he ran across a friend, who particularly desired a talk with him.
“One minute,” said Gilead, and, running in to the agent’s stated his wishes. “I am in a hurry,” he said. “Would it trouble you to send the key on to my office?”
His name asked and given, the agent was all smiles.
“Certainly, Mr Balm—O, most certainly, sir! Would you wish our representative to accompany you?”
“No, no. Send the key, and I will choose my own time.”