I was irritated with Maud, trying to upset my peace of mind that way. She’d had any amount of good times while I’d been at Burridge’s with my nose to the grindstone. And here she was, the first time I’d got a chance to have a spree, looking like a depressed owl and talking like the warning voice of Conscience! As she silently held up my cloak and I thrust my hand in the sleeve, I said, over my shoulder: “And you needn’t go upsetting Tom by telling him about strange men in hansoms who stare up at our front windows. I want to have a good time this evening, not feel that I’m sitting by a guilty being who jumps every time he’s spoken to as if the curse of Cain was on him.” Maud said nothing, and I shook myself into my cloak and swept out to the hall, where Tom was waiting. There had been a slight fog all afternoon, and now it was thick; not a “pea-soup” one, but a good, damp, obscuring fog--a regular “burglar’s delight.” As we came down the steps we saw the two hansom lamps making blurs, like lights behind white cotton screens. Tom was grumbling about it and about going out generally as he helped me in. And just at that minute, still and quick, like a picture going across a magic-lantern slide, I saw a man on the other side of the street step out of the shadow of a porch, and glide swiftly and softly past the light of the lamp and up the street, to where the form of a waiting hansom loomed. It was all very simple and natural, but his walk was odd--so noiseless and stealthy. I got in, and Tom followed me. He hadn’t seen anything. For the moment I didn’t speak of it, because I wasn’t sure. But I’ve got to admit that my heart beat against the Castlecourt diamonds harder than was comfortable. We started, and I listened, and faintly, some way behind us, I heard the _ker-lump!--ker-lump!--ker-lump!_ of another horse’s hoofs on the asphalt. I leaned forward over the door, and tried to look back. Through the mist I saw the two yellow eyes of the hansom behind us. Tom asked me what was the matter, and I told him. He whistled--a long, single note--then leaned back very steady and still. We didn’t say anything for a bit, but just sat tight and listened. It kept behind us that way for about ten minutes. Then I pushed up the trap, and said to Harry: “What’s this hansom behind us up to, Harry?” “That’s what I want to know,” he says, quiet and low. “Lose it, if you can, without being too much of a Jehu,” I answered, and shut the trap.