My trouble took the strangest form. I could not persuade myself that the men and women I met were not also another beast people, animals half wrought into the outward image of human souls, and that they would presently begin to revert⁠—to show first this bestial mark and then that. But I have confided my case to a strangely able man⁠—a man who had known Moreau, and seemed half to credit my story; a mental specialist⁠—and he has helped me mightily, though I do not expect that the terror of that island will ever altogether leave me. At most times it lies far in the back of my mind, a mere distant cloud, a memory, and a faint distrust; but there are times when the little cloud spreads until it obscures the whole sky. Then I look about me at my fellow-men; and I go in fear. I see faces, keen and bright; others dull or dangerous; others, unsteady, insincere⁠—none that have the calm authority of a reasonable soul. I feel as though the animal was surging up through them; that presently the degradation of the islanders will be played over again on a larger scale.