Time ran on; thousands of pounds were offered in
reward, for the death of Sir Danvers was resented 
as a public injury; but Mr. Hyde had disappeared 
out of the ken of the police as though he had 
never existed. Much of his past was unearthed, 
indeed, and all disreputable: tales came out of 
the man’s cruelty, at once so callous and violent; 
of his vile life, of his strange associates, of the 
hatred that seemed to have surrounded his career; 
but of his present whereabouts, not a whisper. 
From the time he had left the house in Soho on 
the morning of the murder, he was simply blotted out; 
and gradually, as time drew on, Mr. Utterson began to 
recover from the hotness of his alarm, and to grow 
more at quiet with himself. The death of Sir Danvers 
was, to his way of thinking, more than paid for by 
the disappearance of Mr. Hyde. Now that that evil 
influence had been withdrawn, a new life began for 
Dr. Jekyll. He came out of his seclusion, renewed 
relations with his friends, became once more their 
familiar guest and entertainer; and whilst he had 
always been known for charities, he was now no less 
distinguished for religion. He was busy, he was much 
in the open air, he did good; his face seemed to 
open and brighten, as if with an inward consciousness 
of service; and for more than two months, the doctor 
was at peace. 

On the 8th of January Utterson had dined at 
the doctor’s with a small party; Lanyon had 
been there; and the face of the host had 
looked from one to the other as in the old 
days when the trio were inseparable friends. 
On the 12th, and again on the 14th, the door 
was shut against the lawyer. “The doctor was 
confined to the house,” Poole said, “and saw 
no one.” On the 15th, he tried again, and 
was again refused; and having now been used 
for the last two months to see his friend 
almost daily, he found this return of solitude 
to weigh upon his spirits. The fifth night 
he had in Guest to dine with him; and the 
sixth he betook himself to Dr. Lanyon’s. 

There at least he was not denied admittance;
 but when he came in, he was shocked at the 
change which had taken place in the doctor’s 
appearance. He had his death-warrant written 
legibly upon his face. The rosy man had grown 
pale; his flesh had fallen away; he was visibly 
balder and older; and yet it was not so much 
these tokens of a swift physical decay that 
arrested the lawyer’s notice, as a look in the 
eye and quality of manner that seemed to testify 
to some deep-seated terror of the mind. It was 
unlikely that the doctor should fear death; 
and yet that was what Utterson was tempted to 
suspect. “Yes,” he thought; “he is a doctor, 
he must know his own state and that his days 
are counted; and the knowledge is more than 
he can bear.” And yet when Utterson remarked 
on his ill looks, it was with an air of great 
firmness that Lanyon declared himself a doomed 
man. 

“I have had a shock,” he said, “and I shall 
never recover. It is a question of weeks. 
Well, life has been pleasant; I liked it; 
yes, sir, I used to like it. I sometimes 
think if we knew all, we should be more 
glad to get away.” 

“Jekyll is ill, too,” observed Utterson. 
“Have you seen him?” 

But Lanyon’s face changed, and he held 
up a trembling hand. “I wish to see or 
hear no more of Dr. Jekyll,” he said in 
a loud, unsteady voice. “I am quite done 
with that person; and I beg that you will 
spare me any allusion to one whom I 
regard as dead.” 

“Tut, tut!” said Mr. Utterson; and then after a 
considerable pause, “Can’t I do anything?” he 
inquired. “We are three very old friends, Lanyon; 
we shall not live to make others.” 

“Nothing can be done,” returned Lanyon; “ask himself.” 

“He will not see me,” said the lawyer. 

“I am not surprised at that,” was the reply. “Some day, 
Utterson, after I am dead, you may perhaps come to learn 
the right and wrong of this. I cannot tell you. And in 
the meantime, if you can sit and talk with me of other 
things, for God’s sake, stay and do so; but if you cannot 
keep clear of this accursed topic, then in God’s name, 
go, for I cannot bear it.” 

As soon as he got home, Utterson sat down and wrote to 
Jekyll, complaining of his exclusion from the house, and 
asking the cause of this unhappy break with Lanyon; and 
the next day brought him a long answer, often very 
pathetically worded, and sometimes darkly mysterious in 
drift. The quarrel with Lanyon was incurable. “I do not 
blame our old friend,” Jekyll wrote, “but I share his 
view that we must never meet. I mean from henceforth to 
lead a life of extreme seclusion; you must not be surprised, 
nor must you doubt my friendship, if my door is often shut 
even to you. You must suffer me to go my own dark way. 
I have brought on myself a punishment and a danger that I 
cannot name. If I am the chief of sinners, I am the chief 
of sufferers also. I could not think that this earth 
contained a place for sufferings and terrors so unmanning; 
and you can do but one thing, Utterson, to lighten this 
destiny, and that is to respect my silence.” Utterson was 
amazed; the dark influence of Hyde had been withdrawn, the 
doctor had returned to his old tasks and amities; a week 
ago, the prospect had smiled with every promise of a 
cheerful and an honoured age; and now in a moment, friendship, 
and peace of mind, and the whole tenor of his life were 
wrecked. So great and unprepared a change pointed to 
madness; but in view of Lanyon’s manner and words, 
there must lie for it some deeper ground. 

A week afterwards Dr. Lanyon took to his bed, and in 
something less than a fortnight he was dead. The night 
after the funeral, at which he had been sadly affected, 
Utterson locked the door of his business room, and 
sitting there by the light of a melancholy candle, drew 
out and set before him an envelope addressed by the hand 
and sealed with the seal of his dead friend. “PRIVATE: 
for the hands of G. J. Utterson ALONE, and in case of 
his predecease to be destroyed unread,” so it was 
emphatically superscribed; and the lawyer dreaded to 
behold the contents. “I have buried one friend to-day,” 
he thought: “what if this should cost me another?” And 
then he condemned the fear as a disloyalty, and broke the 
seal. Within there was another enclosure, likewise sealed, 
and marked upon the cover as “not to be opened till the death 
or disappearance of Dr. Henry Jekyll.” Utterson could not trust 
his eyes. Yes, it was disappearance; here again, as in the mad 
will which he had long ago restored to its author, here 
again were the idea of a disappearance and the name of 
Henry Jekyll bracketted. But in the will, that idea had 
sprung from the sinister suggestion of the man Hyde; it 
was set there with a purpose all too plain and horrible. 
Written by the hand of Lanyon, what should it mean? A 
great curiosity came on the trustee, to disregard the 
prohibition and dive at once to the bottom of these 
mysteries; but professional honour and faith to his 
dead friend were stringent obligations; and the packet 
slept in the inmost corner of his private safe. 

It is one thing to mortify curiosity, another to 
conquer it; and it may be doubted if, from that 
day forth, Utterson desired the society of his 
surviving friend with the same eagerness. He 
thought of him kindly; but his thoughts were disquieted 
and fearful. He went to call indeed; but he was perhaps
relieved to be denied admittance; perhaps, in his heart, 
he preferred to speak with Poole upon the doorstep and 
surrounded by the air and sounds of the open city, rather
than to be admitted into that house of voluntary bondage, 
and to sit and speak with its inscrutable recluse. 
Poole had, indeed, no very pleasant news to communicate. 
The doctor, it appeared, now more than ever confined 
himself to the cabinet over the laboratory, where he 
would sometimes even sleep; he was out of spirits, 
he had grown very silent, he did not read; it seemed 
as if he had something on his mind. Utterson became so 
used to the unvarying character of these reports, that 
he fell off little by little in the frequency of his 
visits. 
