“I’m sorry,” he said, wearily.  “I believe absolutely in you, but I believe also in her.  There must be some misunderstanding.”

Rice rose up.  Douglas had paid the bill long ago.  A waiter, overcome with the munificence of his tip, brought them their hats and preceded them, smiling, to the door.  They passed out into the street, and the fresh air was grateful to them both.  Rice passed his arm through his companion’s.

“I want you to give me just an hour,” he said—­“no more.”

Douglas nodded, and they made their way through a maze of squares and streets southwards.  At last Rice stopped before a house in a terrace of smoke-begrimed tenements, and led the way inside.  They mounted flight after flight of stairs, pausing at last before a door on the topmost floor.  Rice threw it open, and motioned his companion to follow him in.

It was a small chamber, bare and gaunt, without ornament or luxury, without even comfort.  The furniture was the poorest of its sort, the scrap of carpet was eked out with linoleum from which the pattern had long been worn.  There was only one thing which could be said in its favour—­the room was clean.  Rice leaned against the mantelpiece, watching his companion’s face.

“My friend,” he said, “I have brought you here because I wanted you to see my home.  Shall I tell you why?  Because it is exactly typical of my life.  Bare and empty, comfortless, with never a bright spot nor a ray of hope.  There is nothing here to dazzle you, is there?  All that you can remark in its favour is that it is tolerably clean—­all in my life that I can lay claim to is that I have managed to preserve a moderate amount of self-respect.  This is my life, my present and my future.  I wanted you to see it.”

Douglas was puzzled.  He scarcely knew what to say, but instinctively he felt that Rice’s purpose in bringing him here had not yet been explained.  So he waited.

“I have told you,” Rice continued, “of Drexley and of poor young Silverton.  I have told you that there have been many others.  I have told you that she even tried to do you ill that you might be numbered amongst her victims.  Now I tell you what as yet I have told no man.  I, too, was once the most pitiful of her slaves.”

“You?”

A sharp, staccato cry broke from Douglas’s lips.  He had not expected this.  Rice was suddenly an older man.  The careless front he showed to the world was gone.  He was haggard, weary, elderly.  It was a rare moment with him.

“I made a brave start,” he continued—­“like you.  Some one took me to her house.  I made an epigram that pleased her; I passed at once into the circle of her intimates.  She flattered me, dazzled me, fed my ambition and my passion.  I told her of the girl whom I loved, whom I was engaged to marry.  She was on the surface sympathetic; in reality she never afterwards let pass an opportunity of making some scathing remark as to the folly of