“But he has got to see me,” he cried, “What’s the use of you going to ask if he will?”

Mr. Taynton went to the door of his room which opened into the hall.

“Come in, Morris,” he said.

Though it had been Morris’s hand which had raised so uncontrolled a clamour, and his voice that just now had been so uncontrolled, there was no sign, when the door of Mr. Taynton’s room had closed behind them, that there was any excitement of any sort raging within him.  He sat down at once in a chair opposite the window, and Mr. Taynton saw that in spite of the heat of the day and the violence of that storm which he knew was yelling and screaming through his brain, his face was absolutely white.  He sat with his hands on the arms of the Chippendale chair, and they too were quite still.

“I have seen Sir Richard,” said he, “and I came back at once to see you.  He has told me everything.  Godfrey Mills has been lying about me and slandering me.”

Mr. Taynton sat down heavily on the sofa.

“No, no; don’t say it, don’t say it,” he murmured.  “It can’t be true, I can’t believe it.”

“But it is true, and you have got to believe it.  He suggested that you should go and talk it over with him.  I will drive you up in the car, if you wish—­”

Mr. Taynton waved his hand with a negative gesture.

“No, no, not at once,” he cried.  “I must think it over.  I must get used to this dreadful, this appalling shock.  I am utterly distraught.”

Morris turned to him, and across his face for one moment there shot, swift as a lightning-flash, a quiver of rage so rabid that he looked scarcely human, but like some Greek presentment of the Furies or Revenge.  Never, so thought his old friend, had he seen such glorious youthful beauty so instinct and inspired with hate.  It was the demoniacal force of that which lent such splendour to it.  But it passed in a second, and Morris still very pale, very quiet spoke to him.

“Where is he?” he asked.  “I must see him at once.  It won’t keep.”

Then he sprang up, his rage again mastering him.

“What shall I do it with?” he said.  “What shall I do it with?”

For the moment Mr. Taynton forgot himself and his anxieties.

“Morris, you don’t know what you are saying,” he cried.  “Thank God nobody but me heard you say that!”

Morris seemed not to be attending.

“Where is he?” he said again, “are you concealing him here?  I have already been to your office, and he wasn’t there, and to his flat, and he wasn’t there.”

“Thank God,” ejaculated the lawyer.

“By all means if you like.  But I’ve got to see him, you know.  Where is he?”

“He is away in town,” said Mr. Taynton, “but he will be back to-night.  Now attend.  Of course you must see him, I quite understand that.  But you mustn’t see him alone, while you are like this.”

“No, I don’t want to,” said Morris.  “I should like other people to see what I’ve got to—­to say to him—­that, that partner of yours.”