’I called at your lodgings early to-day, and somehow I got into talk with the girl.  She was cheeky, and her behaviour puzzled me.  Finally she made an incredible announcement—­that you had asked her to marry you.  Of course it’s a lie?’

‘To marry her?’ exclaimed the listener hoarsely, with an attempt at laughter.  ‘Do you think that likely—­after all I have gone through?’

’No, I certainly don’t.  It staggered me.  But what I want to know is, can she cause trouble?’

’How do I know?—­a girl will lie so boldly.  She might make a scandal, I suppose; or threaten it, in hope of getting money out of me.’

‘But is there any ground for a scandal?’ demanded Harvey.

‘Not the slightest, as you mean it.’

’I’m glad to hear that.  But she may give you trouble.  I see the thing doesn’t astonish you very much; no doubt you were aware of her character.’

’Yes, yes; I know it pretty well.  Come, let us get out of this squalid inferno; how I hate it!  Have you had dinner?  I don’t want any.  Let us go to your rooms, shall we?  There’ll be a hansom passing the bridge.’

They walked on in silence, and when they had found a cab they drove westward, talking only of Dr. Shergold’s affairs.  Munden lived in the region of the Squares, hard by the British Museum; he took his friend into a comfortably furnished room, the walls hidden with books and prints, and there they sat down to smoke, a bottle of whisky within easy reach of both.  It was plain to Harvey that some mystery lay in his friend’s reserve on the subject of the girl Emma; he was still anxious, but would not lead the talk to unpleasant things.  Shergold drank like a thirsty man, and the whisky seemed to make him silent.  Presently he fell into absolute muteness, and lay wearily back in his chair.

‘The excitement has been too much for you,’ Munden remarked.

Shergold looked at him, with a painful embarrassment in his features; then suddenly he bent forward.

‘Munden, it’s I who have lied.  I did ask that girl to marry me.’

‘When?’

‘Last night.’

‘Why?’

‘Because for a moment I was insane.’  They stared at each other.

‘Has she any hold upon you?’ Munden asked slowly.

‘None whatever, except this frantic offer of mine.’

‘Into which she inveigled you?’

’I can’t honestly say she did; it was entirely my own fault.  She has never behaved loosely, or even like a schemer.  I doubt whether she knew anything about my uncle, until I told her last night.’

He spoke rapidly, in a thick voice, moving his arms in helpless protestation.  His look was one of unutterable misery.

‘Well,’ observed Munden, ’the frenzy has at all events passed.  You have the common-sense to treat it as if it had never been; and really I am tempted to believe that it was literal lunacy.  Last night were you drunk?’