He brooded incessantly over his developed but starved passion, over the thought that Sydney chose to believe him a murderer. At first, when he was trying day after day to see her, he clung to his love for her; but when he found her obdurate, set upon wronging him in her thought, his passion, verging towards despair, changed, and was coloured with hatred. By degrees he came to dwell more upon the injury done to him by her suspicion than upon his love of her, and then it was that a certain wildness crept into his manner, and alarmed or puzzled those who consulted him. That his career was going to the dogs Fane understood, but he did not care. The vision of Sydney was always before him. He was for ever plotting and planning to be with her alone--against her will or not, it was nothing to him. And when he was alone with her, what then? He would know how to act. It was just in the dawn of the spring season over London that further inaction became insupportable to him. One evening, after a day of listless inactivity spent in waiting for the patients who no longer came in crowds to his door, he put on his hat and walked from Mayfair to Kensington, vaguely, yet with intention. He looked calm, even absent; but he was a desperate man. All fear of what the world thinks or says, all consideration of outward circumstances and their relation to worldly happiness, had died within him. He was entirely abstracted and self-centred. He reached the broad thoroughfare of Ilbury Road, with its line of artistic red houses, detached and standing in their gardens. The darkness was falling as he turned into it and began to walk up and down opposite the house with the big studio in which he was once a welcome visitor. There was a light in one of the bedroom windows and in the hall, and presently, as Fane watched, a brougham drove up to the door. It waited a few moments before the house, then some one entered the carriage. The door was banged; the horse moved on. Through the windows Fane saw a woman's face, pale, against the pane. It was the face of Sydney. For a moment he thought he would call to the coachman to stop. Then he restrained himself, and again walked up and down, waiting. She must return presently. He would speak to her as she was getting out of the carriage. He would force her to receive him.