I listened and presently heard the voices again, but the conversation was reassuringly swift and I again heard the front door open and close.

I heard Poole retreat down the corridor to the kitchens, and I set about eating the food he had brought me. He woke me when he came to collect the plates, and I retired to my bed.

The only thought that followed me as I went up the stairs, was to wonder who had described Hyde to Utterson, and why he had felt it necessary to lie. It seemed so out of character from the trustworthy man whom I had always dealt with. My final surmise was that maybe it was the same thing in Hyde that seemed to cause such revulsion in others. Maybe it caused them to lie and cheat as well. Maybe he was not simply a repository for my darker side, but a carrier of it, with malice and spite surrounding him in a cloud, like Lister's airborne microbes causing infection.

Maybe by allowing Hyde his existence I was risking an epidemic of evil. I doubted it, but it was a thought of a type that was becoming all too common. I was increasingly aware that on each occasion I was more and more reluctant to re-inhabit Hyde, yet like any addiction, I found that I could not help myself.