The attempt was futile.

Talk still seemed to buzz about him; his temples throbbed; his thoughts wandered far and wide.

Driven to bed long before his accustomed hour, he heard raucous voices rending the night, bellowing in hideous antiphony from this side of the street and the other, as the vendors of a halfpenny paper made the most of what Providence had sent them.
The first thing after breakfast next morning, he posted a line to Hugh Carnaby.

'Is there any way in which I can be of use to you?
If you think not, I shall be off tomorrow to Greystone for a few days.

I feel as if we were all being swept into a ghastly whirlpool which roars over the bottomless pit.