the way; now mechanically walking forward a few paces; now
stopping again absently. At one moment I found myself doubting
the reality of my own adventure; at another I was perplexed and
distressed by an uneasy sense of having done wrong, which yet left
me confusedly ignorant of how I could have done right. I hardly
knew where I was going, or what I meant to do next; I was
conscious of nothing but the confusion of my own thoughts, when I
was abruptly recalled to myself--awakened, I might almost say--by
the sound of rapidly approaching wheels close behind me.

I was on the dark side of the road, in the thick shadow of some
garden trees, when I stopped to look round. On the opposite and
lighter side of the way, a short distance below me, a policeman
was strolling along in the direction of the Regent's Park.

The carriage passed me--an open chaise driven by two men.

"Stop!" cried one. "There's a policeman. Let's ask him."

The horse was instantly pulled up, a few yards beyond the dark
place where I stood.

"Policeman!" cried the first speaker. "Have you seen a woman pass
this way?"

"What sort of woman, sir?"

"A woman in a lavender-coloured gown----"

"No, no," interposed the second man. "The clothes we gave her