For Holmes had turned abruptly, glancing
over at the city with a strange wistfulness. It was over in a
moment. He resumed the slow, controlling walk beside him. They
went on in silence into town, and when they did speak, it was on
indifferent subjects, not referring to the last. The Doctor's
heat, as it usually did, boiled out in spasms on trifles. Once
he stumped his toe, and, I am sorry to say, swore roundly about
it, just as he would have done in the new Arcadia, if one of the
jail-birds comprising that colony had been ungrateful for his
advantages. Philanthropists, for some curious reason, are not
the most amiable members of small families.
He gave Holmes the roll of parchment he had in his pocket,
looking keenly at him, as he did so, but only saying, that, if he
meant to sign it, it would be done to-morrow. As Holmes took it,
they stopped at the great door of the factory. He went in alone,
Knowles going down the street. One trifle, strange in its way,
he remembered afterwards. Holding the roll of paper in his hand
that would make the mill his, he went, in his slow, grave way,
down the long passage to the loom-rooms. There was a crowd of
porters and firemen there, as usual, and he thought one of them
hastily passed him in the dark passage, hiding behind an engine.
As the shadow fell on him, his teeth chattered with a chilly
shudder. He smiled, thinking how superstitious people would say
that some one trod on his grave just then, or that Death looked
at him, and went on.
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