That evening Mr. Utterson came home to his bachelor house in sombre spirits and satdown to dinner without relish.

It was his custom of a Sunday, when this meal was over, tosit close by the fire, a volume of some dry divinity on his reading desk, until the clock of theneighbouring church rang out the hour of twelve, when he would go soberly and gratefullyto bed.

On this night however, as soon as the cloth was taken away, he took up a candle andwent into his business room.

There he opened his safe, took from the most private part of ita document endorsed on the envelope as Dr. Jekyll's Will and sat down with a clouded browto study its contents.

The will was holograph, for Mr. Utterson though he took charge of itnow that it was made, had refused to lend the least assistance in the making of it; itprovided not only that, in case of the decease of Henry Jekyll, M.D., D.C.L., L.L.D., F.R.S., etc.,all his possessions were to pass into the hands of his "friend and benefactor Edward Hyde,"but that in case of Dr. Jekyll's "disappearance or unexplained absence for any periodexceeding three calendar months," the said Edward Hyde should step into the said HenryJekyll's shoes without further delay and free from any burthen or obligation beyond thepayment of a few small sums to the members of the doctor's household.

This document hadlong been the lawyer's eyesore. It offended him both as a lawyer and as a lover of the saneand customary sides of life, to whom the fanciful was the immodest. And hitherto it was hisignorance of Mr. Hyde that had swelled his indignation; now, by a sudden turn, it was hisknowledge.

It was already bad enough when the name was but a name of which he couldlearn no more.

It was worse when it began to be clothed upon with detestable attributes;and out of the shifting, insubstantial mists that had so long baffled his eye, there leaped upthe sudden, definite presentment of a fiend.