There was silence for several moments which was broken by a rattle, and a stream of whisky and seltzer dripped from the table.

“Hallo!” said Forel.  “Has anything upset you, Deringham?”

Deringham stood up with a little harsh laugh, dabbing It the breast of his shirt with his handkerchief.

“I think the question should apply to my glass, but the room is a trifle hot, and my heart has been troubling me lately,” he said.

Forel flung one of the windows open.  “I fancy my wife is waiting for us, gentlemen, and I will be with you in a few minutes,” he said.

Alton and Seaforth were almost the last to file out of the smoking-room, and when they reached the corridor the former turned upon his comrade with a glint in his half-closed eyes.

“You show a curious taste for a man raised as you have been in the old country,” he said.  “Now what in the name of thunder made you tell that story?”

Seaforth smiled somewhat inanely.  “I don’t know; I just felt I had to.  All of us are subject to little weaknesses occasionally.”

Alton stopped and looked at him steadily.  “Then there will be trouble if you give way to them again.  And you put in a good deal more than I ever told anybody.  Now you haven’t brains enough to figure out all that.”

Seaforth laughed good-humouredly.  “It is possibly fortunate that Tom has,” he said.

“Tom—­be condemned,” said Alton viciously, and Seaforth, seeing that he was about to revert to the previous question, apparently answered a summons from his host and slipped back into the smoking-room.

Alton waited a moment, and then moved somewhat stiffly towards a low stairway which led to a broad landing that was draped and furnished as an annex to an upper room.  One or two of the company were seated there, and he hoped they would not notice him, for while he could walk tolerably well upon the level a stairway presented a difficulty.  He had all his life been a vigorous man, and because of it was painfully sensitive about his affliction.  Just then Mrs. Forel came out upon the landing, and when the girl she spoke to turned.  Alton saw that Alice Deringham was looking down on him.  For a moment there was a brightness in his eyes, but it faded suddenly, and while his knee bent under him he set his lips as with pain.  Then he stumbled, and clung to the balustrade.  For a moment he dare not look up, and when he did so there was a flush on his forehead which slowly died away as he saw the face of the girl.

She had also laid her hand as if for support upon the balustrade, for it was unfortunate she had not been told that one effect of Alton’s injury would be permanent.  At the commencement of their friendship she had been painfully aware of what she considered his shortcomings, but these had gradually become less evident, and something in the man’s forceful personality had carried her away.  Possibly, though she may not have realized it, his splendid animal vigour had its part in this—­and now dismay and a great pity struggled within her.  It was especially unfortunate that when Alton looked up the consternation had risen uppermost, for the man’s perceptions were not of the clearest then, and he saw nothing of the compassion, but only the shrinking in her eyes.