Bessel
to attempt intercourse with these drifting creatures. Idiot phantoms,
they seemed, children of vain desire, beings unborn and forbidden
the boon of being, whose only expressions and gestures told of
the envy and craving for life that was their one link with existence.
It says much for his resolution that, amidst the swarming cloud
of these noiseless spirits of evil, he could still think of Mr. Vincey.
He made a violent effort of will and found himself, he knew not how,
stooping towards Staple Inn, saw Vincey sitting attentive and alert
in his arm-chair by the fire.
And clustering also about him, as they clustered ever about all
that lives and breathes, was another multitude of these vain voiceless
shadows, longing, desiring, seeking some loophole into life.
For a space Mr. Bessel sought ineffectually to attract his friend's
attention. He tried to get in front of his eyes, to move the objects
in his room, to touch him. But Mr. Vincey remained unaffected,
ignorant of the being that was so close to his own. The strange
something that Mr. Bessel has compared to a sheet of glass separated
them impermeably.
And at last Mr.
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