The black, slow figure of a policeman moved noiselessly along the railings opposite.
From then till eleven o'clock, when he would make himself some cocoa on a little spirit-lamp, the writer of the "Book of Universal Brotherhood" would alternate between his bent posture above his manuscript and his blank consideration of the night....
With a jerk, Hilary came back to his reflections beneath the bust of Socrates.
"Each of us has a shadow in those places--in those streets!" There certainly was a virus in that notion.

One must either take it as a jest, like Stephen; or, what must one do?
How far was it one's business to identify oneself with other people, especially the helpless--how far to preserve oneself intact--'integer vita'?
Hilary was no young person, like his niece or Martin, to whom everything seemed simple; nor was he an old person like their grandfather, for whom life had lost its complications.
And, very conscious of his natural disabilities for a decision on a like, or indeed on any, subject except, perhaps, a point of literary technique, he got up from his writing-table, and, taking his little bulldog, went out.

His intention was to visit Mrs.Hughs in Hound Street, and see with his own eyes the state of things.

But he had another reason, too, for wishing to go there .....