CHAPTER VIII. SHADOW PURSUING
I did not at once realize that I was at last alone. It seemed to me that all of them--Buller, Osmund, Hench, Helen--were yet at my side as I pushed into the flaming icy stream. For that, I remember, was how it just seemed to me--to be flaming with light and brilliant with cold. I was without hat or coat--I was terrified. I must confess to that now, for this was the first moment (although it was not to be the last) during this evening when I was quaking, panic-driven with terror. All that I wanted at that particular instant was to flee, to hide myself, to bury myself, to escape from every kind of contact. It was not until later that the question of Helen, of my return to the flat, of my involving myself once more in the whole adventure, began to persecute me.
