It was not Mills at all; it was Mr.Taynton.
* * * * * The terror plucked him from his sleep; for a moment he wrestled and struggled to raise his head from the pillow and loosen the clutch of the night-hag who had suddenly seized him, and with choking throat and streaming brow he sat up in bed.

Even then his dream was more real to him than the sight of his own familiar room, more real than the touch of sheet and blanket or the dew of anguish which his own hand wiped from his forehead and throat.

Yet, what was his dream?
Was it merely some subconscious stringing together of suggestions and desires and events vivified in sleep to a coherent story (all but that recognition of Mr.
Taynton, which was nightmare pure and simple), or _had it happened_?
With waking, anyhow, the public life, the life that concerned other living folk as well as himself, became predominant again.

He had certainly seen Sir Richard the day before, and Sir Richard had given him the name of the man who had slandered him.

He had gone to meet that man, but he had not kept his appointment, nor had he come back to his flat in Brighton.