It was a low lean-to garret; there was a deal table and an old chair in it, but no bed.  The windows were broken; the paper hanging down in strips.  Elsley was standing before the empty fireplace, his hand in his bosom, as if he had been startled by the scuffle outside.  He had not shaved for some days.

So much Tom could note; but no more.  He saw the glance of recognition pass over Elsley’s face, and that an ugly one.  He saw him draw something from his bosom, and spring like a cat almost upon the table.  A flash—­a crack.  He had fired a pistol full in Campbell’s face.

Tom was startled, not at the thing, but that such a man should have done it.  He had seen souls, and too many, flit out of the world by that same tiny crack, in Californian taverns, Arabian deserts, Australian gullies.  He knew all about that:  but he liked Campbell; and he breathed more freely the next moment, when he saw him standing still erect, a quiet smile on his face, and felt the plaster dropping from the wall upon his own head.  The bullet had gone over the Major.  All was right.

“He is not man enough for a second shot,” thought Tom quietly, “while the Major’s eye is on him.”

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Vavasour,” he heard the Major say, in a gentle unmoved voice, “for this intrusion.  I assure you that there is no cause for any anger on your part; and I am come to entreat you to forget and forgive any conduct of mine which may have caused you to mistake either me or the lady whom I am unworthy to mention.”

“I am glad the beggar fired at him,” thought Tom.  “One spice of danger, and he’s himself again, and will overawe the poor cur by mere civility.  I was afraid of some abject methodist parson humility, which would give the other party a handle.”

Elsley heard him with a stupefied look, like that of a trapped wild beast, in which rage, shame, suspicion, and fear, were mingled with the vacant glare of the opium-eater’s eye.  Then his eye drooped beneath Campbell’s steady gentle gaze, and he looked uneasily round the room, still like a trapped wild beast, as if for a hole to escape by; then up again, but sidelong, at Major Campbell.

“I assure you, sir, on the word of a Christian and a soldier, that you are labouring under an entire misapprehension.  For God’s sake and Mrs. Vavasour’s sake, come back, sir, to those who will receive you with nothing but affection!  Your wife has been all but dead; she thinks of no one but you, asks for no one but you.  In God’s name, sir, what are you doing here, while a wife who adores you is dying from your—­I do not wish to be rude, sir, but let me say at least—­neglect?”

Elsley looked at him still askance, puzzled, inquiring.  Suddenly his great beautiful eyes opened to preternatural wideness, as if trying to grasp a new thought.  He started, shifted his feet to and fro, his arms straight down by his sides, his fingers clutching after something.  Then he looked up hurriedly again at Campbell; and Thurnall looked at him also; and his face was as the face of an angel.