The fang of some dread or other was always fastening in him. He was full of all kinds of whimsical fancies--those whims which seem so unimportant, so imbecile and contemptible to the level-minded, and which are so tragic to the morbid. You understand the sort of thing; avoiding the seams of paving stones, taking your fate from the chance expression of the first strange face you meet when you go out of doors, from the color of a horse, the chime of a clock, street cries--anything. He was very candid when he stood on his trial for his life; he poured out all his troubles, piteously magnifying trifles, blaming the laundress, the blue dress, the clock in the square, the cab outside, for his misfortune. The prison doctor and another examined him. Of course they said he was mad. He may have been. Yet, if he had taken some other set, he would have been as sane as you are to-day. On the Saturday that he killed Murphy he had delayed going to Dulwich by the usual early afternoon train. He was afraid for one thing--afraid of the poor little cousin’s frock. He kept putting it off--the time-table spread out in front of him--from one half-hour to the other. And then, as the afternoon went on, a new terror presented itself. The Inn began to fill up and grow gay with fellows home early from their offices, and smart shop girls, light-hearted with the weekly half-holiday. He could see them all at the open windows--men in lounging coats and women in cambric bodices. Pretty faces peeped over flower boxes and round idly flapping curtains. He was afraid to cross the square. Directly the girls saw him they would lean over the window ledges, make funny grimaces, and cough. There would be a perfect chorus of short, dry, mocking coughs. He had a little nervous trick of clearing his throat, and the girls, who were full of chaff, and not over-fond of him because he was so grave and proper, always mimicked him and called him Splutters. They have a nickname for most of the men, but no one but Stapley ever took any notice. He was afraid to run along that line of little coughs and bantering cries of “Splutters! Splutters!” He looked at one girl immediately opposite, a girl with very fluffy hair and a flashing steel buckle at her waist, and said tragically: “If that girl coughs and calls out ‘Splutters,’ I may as well go and hang myself. I shan’t have any luck. It will be all up with me.” So for fear that she would, he waited until dusk, when he thought he would be able to glide out of the Inn unobserved.