I stood and watched the door for a moment, catching my breath and searching my feelings about the encounter with this strange man who had such power over my old friend, Doctor Jekyll. It is certain that I had felt the power of the man, but it was a fell power and I was more afraid for my friend than ever.

I trudged up the street, feeling the effort of lifting my feet weighing unnaturally upon me, so that I had to pause every few steps. I felt like a man with a sudden fever.

The thing that struck me most forcibly about the man was that I could describe his weaselish features and dwarfish stature with ease. I could even find words for his manner, a mix of timidity and boldness, a harshness and cynicism underlying all. However, there were no words for the way he had made me feel purely by his presence, as if he wore his intentions on the outside of his body and they were stained and black. Like the corona that forms around street-lamps on foggy nights, he seemed to emanate evil from his very core, with it hanging round him in a cloud.

'There must be something else,' I heard myself say out loud. 'There is something more, if I could find a name for it. God bless me, the man seems hardly human! Something troglodytic, shall we say? or can it be the old story of Doctor Fell? or is it the mere radiance of a foul soul that thus transpires through, and transfigures, its clay continent? The last, I think; for, O, my poor old Harry Jekyll, if ever I read Satan's signature upon a face, it is on that of your new friend.'