While we were engaged upon this duty, it came on to rain in a manner worthy of the tropics.  The vault reverberated; every gargoyle instantly poured its full discharge; we waded back to the inn, ankle-deep in impromptu brooks; and the rest of the afternoon sat weatherbound, hearkening to the sonorous deluge.  For two hours I talked of indifferent matters, laboriously feeding the conversation; for two hours my mind was quite made up to do my duty instantly—­and at each particular instant I postponed it till the next.  To screw up my faltering courage, I called at dinner for some sparkling wine.  It proved when it came to be detestable; I could not put it to my lips; and Bellairs, who had as much palate as a weevil, was left to finish it himself.  Doubtless the wine flushed him; doubtless he may have observed my embarrassment of the afternoon; doubtless he was conscious that we were approaching a crisis, and that that evening, if I did not join with him, I must declare myself an open enemy.  At least he fled.  Dinner was done; this was the time when I had bound myself to break my silence; no more delays were to be allowed, no more excuses received.  I went upstairs after some tobacco; which I felt to be a mere necessity in the circumstances; and when I returned, the man was gone.  The waiter told me he had left the house.

The rain still plumped, like a vast shower-bath, over the deserted town.  The night was dark and windless:  the street lit glimmeringly from end to end, lamps, house windows, and the reflections in the rain-pools all contributing.  From a public-house on the other side of the way, I heard a harp twang and a doleful voice upraised in the “Larboard Watch,” “The Anchor’s Weighed,” and other naval ditties.  Where had my Shyster wandered?  In all likelihood to that lyrical tavern; there was no choice of diversion; in comparison with Stallbridge-Minster on a rainy night, a sheepfold would seem gay.

Again I passed in review the points of my interview, on which I was always constantly resolved so long as my adversary was absent from the scene:  and again they struck me as inadequate.  From this dispiriting exercise I turned to the native amusements of the inn coffee-room, and studied for some time the mezzotints that frowned upon the wall.  The railway guide, after showing me how soon I could leave Stallbridge and how quickly I could reach Paris, failed to hold my attention.  An illustrated advertisement book of hotels brought me very low indeed; and when it came to the local paper, I could have wept.  At this point, I found a passing solace in a copy of Whittaker’s Almanac, and obtained in fifty minutes more information than I have yet been able to use.