The thought came to him then, “Suppose I gave up this whole job?” And the image of his mother seeking refuge with Lord Carfax, of Gerda back again in Torp’s yard, of himself wandering over the world, far removed from Christie, rose sickening, ghastly, before him.

He lifted the paperweight from the pile of manuscript. It had its own interest, this paperweight⁠—a slab of alabaster with a silver eagle upon it. He tilted it up and balanced it sideways, till the eagle looked to him like a fly on a piece of soap.

“Soap?” he thought; and the word put him in mind of what Mr. Urquhart had said about the transfiguration of little things by the decision to commit suicide.

At that moment there was a sharp knock at the door, and Wolf started violently, leaving the paperweight upside-down upon his manuscript.

“Come in!” he cried, in a loud, irritable tone.