He asked Ross to go to see his wife and tell her what had occurred.  Ross did this and had a very painful scene:  Mrs. Wilde wept and said, “I hope Oscar is going away abroad.”

Ross returned to the Cadogan Hotel and told Oscar what his wife had said, but even this didn’t move him to action.

He sat as if glued to his chair, and drank hock and seltzer steadily in almost unbroken silence.  About four o’clock George Wyndham came to see his cousin, Alfred Douglas; not finding him, he wanted to see Oscar, but Oscar, fearing reproaches, sent Ross instead.  Wyndham said it was a pity that Bosie Douglas should be with Oscar, and Ross immediately told him that Wilde’s friends for years past had been trying to separate them and that if he, Wyndham, would keep his cousin away, he would be doing Oscar the very greatest kindness.  At this Wyndham grew more civil, though still “frightfully agitated,” and begged Ross to get Oscar to leave the country at once to avoid scandal.  Ross replied that he and Turner had been trying to bring that about for hours.  In the middle of the conversation Bosie, having returned, burst into the room with:  “I want to see my cousin,” and Ross rejoined Oscar.  In a quarter of an hour Bosie followed him to say that he was going out with Wyndham to see someone of importance.

About five o’clock a reporter of the Star newspaper came to see Oscar, a Mr. Marlowe, who is now editor of The Daily Mail, but again Oscar refused to see him and sent Ross.  Mr. Marlowe was sympathetic and quite understood the position; he informed Ross that a tape message had come through to the paper saying that a warrant for Oscar Wilde had already been issued.  Ross immediately went into the other room and told Oscar, who said nothing, but “went very grey in the face.”

A moment later Oscar asked Ross to give him the money he had got at the bank, though he had refused it several times in the course of the day.  Ross gave it to him, naturally taking it for a sign that he had at length made up his mind to start, but immediately afterwards Oscar settled down in his chair and said, “I shall stay and do my sentence whatever it is”—­a man evidently incapable of action.

For the next hour the trio sat waiting for the blow to fall.  Once or twice Oscar asked querulously where Bosie was, but no one could tell him.

At ten past six the waiter knocked at the door and Ross answered it.  There were two detectives.  The elder entered and said, “We have a warrant here, Mr. Wilde, for your arrest on a charge of committing indecent acts.”  Wilde wanted to know whether he would be given bail; the detective replied: 

“That is a question for the magistrate.”

Oscar then rose and asked, “Where shall I be taken?”

“To Bow Street,” was the reply.

As he picked up a copy of the Yellow Book and groped for his overcoat, they all noticed that he was “very drunk” though still perfectly conscious of what he was doing.