"What the devil is it prevents me seeing him, then?"

That startled me, rather, for the second time that evening; and I really think I had spoken before I had fully realised what was happening.

“From seeing whom?” I said, sitting up in bed.

“Whom?...  You’re not attending.  The fellow I’m telling you about, who runs after me,” he answered—­answered perfectly plainly.

I could see his head there on the pillow, black and white, and his eyes were closed.  He made a slight movement with his arm, but that did not wake him.  Then it came to me, with a sort of start, what was happening.  I slipped half out of bed.  Would he—­would he?—­answer another question?...  I risked it, breathlessly: 

“Have you any idea who he is?”

Well, that too he answered.

“Who he is?  The Runner?...  Don’t be silly. Who else should it be?”

With every nerve in me tingling, I tried again.

“What happens, then, when he catches you?”

This time, I really don’t know whether his words were an answer or not; they were these: 

“To hear him catching you up ... and then padding away ahead again!  All right, all right ... but I guess it’s weakening him a bit, too....”

Without noticing it, I had got out of bed, and had advanced quite to the middle of the floor.

“What did you say his name was?” I breathed.

But that was a dead failure.  He muttered brokenly for a moment, gave a deep troubled sigh, and then began to snore loudly and regularly.

I made my way back to bed; but I assure you that before I did so I filled my basin with water, dipped my face into it, and then set the candlestick afloat in it, leaving the candle burning.  I thought I’d like to have a light....  It had burned down by morning.  Rooum, I remember, remarked on the silly practice of reading in bed.

Well, it was a pretty kind of obsession for a man to have, wasn’t it?  Somebody running after him all the time, and then ... running on ahead?  And, of course, on a broad pavement there would be plenty of room for this running gentleman to run round; but on an eight- or nine-inch kerb, such as that of the new road out Lewisham way ... but perhaps he was a jumping gentleman too, and could jump over a man’s head.  You’d think he’d have to get past some way, wouldn’t you?...  I remember vaguely wondering whether the name of that Runner was not Conscience; but Conscience isn’t a matter of molecules and osmosis....

One thing, however, was clear; I’d got to tell Rooum what I’d learned:  for you can’t get hold of a fellow’s secrets in ways like that.  I lost no time about it.  I told him, in fact, soon after we’d left the inn the next morning—­told him how he’d answered in his sleep.

And—­what do you think of this?—­he seemed to think I ought to have guessed it! Guessed a monstrous thing like that!