"I have seen him during one of these long spells of despairing agony, and the expression of his face was such as I could never forget. Hell must be full of such faces. Hudson, I saw that man to-day, I left him just before I came here."
Dr. Duncan paused and seemed rather overcome by emotion; he mixed himself another glass of grog, and after swallowing some continued:
"I was called to see him in his present lodgings off the Strand, with the object of signing a certificate of his lunacy."
Hudson, whose face had assumed a thoughtful and gloomy expression during this narrative, shivered perceptibly and put his glass to his lips but returned it to the table untasted, and said in a low voice:
"Ay, Duncan, I am afraid that same story will be told of me some day. Even now, I sometimes think it is too late—too late.... But, dash it all! let's have no more of this ghastly discourse. I am going to give myself a stiff glass of grog to drive away the blues you have conjured up to me."
"It is getting late. I have to be up early, to-morrow, and I must be off," said the doctor, and he rose and seized Hudson by the hand. "I hope I have not riled you, old man, with my sermonizing. Sermonizing isn't much in my line; but you know you are a very old friend of mine, and I take real interest in you."
"I know that," replied the barrister, giving his friend a warm grip of the hand.
"Well, good-night, old man; I'll look you up again soon."
After Dr. Duncan had gone, Hudson opened the window, and leaning on the sill, stayed there motionless, and thinking of many things as he looked out on the beautiful court, with its splashing fountain, and across the green to the Thames beyond, and the distant Surrey shore.