chapter22

Prendick drifts for three days. He is picked up by a ship headed for San Francisco. Prendick admits that despite being home, he is uneasy. He cannot shake the suspicion that all the people he meets are somehow Beast Men, tainted with an animal influence and always in danger of a sudden reversion. He moves into seclusion, finding this terror unbearable in London. Studying chemistry and astronomy, he finds "a sense of infinite peace and protection in the glittering hosts of heaven," without which he would not care to live.