There was, indeed, something almost indecent about the sensitiveness of this man’s lined and indented face. It made Wolf feel as though at all costs the possessor of such a countenance must be protected from nervous shocks. Was it in taking care of him that Darnley’s blue eyes had acquired their curious expression? Jason’s own eyes were not tragic. They were something worse. They were exposed; they were stripped bare; they seemed to peer forth helplessly from the human skull behind them, as though some protective filaments that ought to have been there were not there!

“I saw you’d turned our pictures to the wall,” he began, fixing his pleading eyes upon Wolf’s face as if asking for permission to humble himself to the ground. “I’ll have them taken away. I’ll have them put in the privy or in the passage.”