He was in Garrick Street, outside the curiosity shop, his latchkey in his hand. He stopped and stared down the street as he had done once before, weeks ago. Was not the root of all his trouble simply this, that he was becoming against his will interested, drawn in? That there were things going on that his common sense rejected as nonsense, but that nevertheless were throwing out feelers like the twisting threats of an octopus, touching him now, only faintly, here for a second, there for a second, but fascinating, holding him so that he could not run away? Granted that Thurston was a charlatan, Miss Avies a humbug, his sister a fool, his father a dreamer, Crashaw a fanatic, did that mean that the power behind them all was sham? Was that force that he had felt when he was a child simply eager superstition? What was behind this street, this moon, these hurrying figures, his own daily life and thoughts? Was there really a vast conspiracy, a huge involving plot moving under the cardboard surface of the world, a plot that he had by an accident of birth spied upon and discovered? Always, every day now, thoughts, suspicions, speculations were coming upon him, uninvited, undesired, from somewhere, from some one. He did not want them he wanted only the material physical life of the ordinary man. It must be because he was idling. He would get work at once, join with some one in the City, go abroad again ... but perhaps even then he would not escape. Thoughts like those of the last weeks did not depend for their urgency on place or time. And Maggie, she was mixed up in it all. He was aware, as he hesitated before opening the door, of the strangest feeling of belonging to her, not love, nor passion, not sentiment even. Only as though he had suddenly realised that with new perils he had received also new protection. He went upstairs with a feeling that he was on the eve of events that would change his whole world.