end, with an all but unconscious thankfulness that he was not such as that other.  To-night, for the first time, and with a wonder we all feel when the obvious but long unseen suddenly becomes apparent, the primary fact of human brotherhood, irrespective of caste, came home to him.  To-night and now he realized, diminutive in the distance as they were, that the swarm of figures that he had hitherto considered mere animals vain of display were impelled upon the street, compelled to keep moving, moving, without a pre-arranged destination, by the same spirit of unrest that had sent him to the buffet.  At that moment he was probably nearer to his fellow-man than ever before in his life; but the truth revealed made him the more unhappy.  He had grown to consider his own unhappiness totally different and infinitely more acute than that of others; he had even taken a sort of morbid, paradoxical pleasure in considering it so; and now even this was taken from him.  Not only had his own secret skeleton been visible when he believed it concealed, but all around him there suddenly sprang up a very cemetery of other skeletons, grinning at his blindness and discomfiture.  His was not a nature to extract content from common discomfort, and but one palliative suggested itself,—­the dull red decanter on the sideboard.  Rising again and filling a glass, he returned and stood for a moment full before the open casement of the window gazing down steadily.

How long he stood there he hardly knew.  Once Alec’s dark face peered into the room, and disappeared as suddenly.  At last there was a knock at the door.

“Come in,” invited Sidwell, without moving.  The door opened and closed, and Winston Hough stood inside.  The big man gave one glance at the surroundings, saw the empty glass, and backed away.  “Pardon my intrusion,” he said with his hand on the knob.

Sidwell turned.  “Intrusion—­nothing!” He placed the decanter with glasses and a box of cigars on a convenient table.  “Come and have a drink with me,” and the liquor flowed until both glasses were nearly full.

Hough hesitated in a reluctance that was not feigned.  He felt that discretion was the better part of valor, and that it would be well to escape while he could, even at the price of discourtesy.

“Really,” he said, “I only dropped in to say hello.  I—­”

“Nonsense!” interrupted Sidwell.  “You must think I’m as innocent as a new-born lamb.  Come over here and sit down.”

Hough hesitated, but yielded.

Sidwell lifted his glass.  “Here’s to—­whatever the trouble may be that brought you here.  People don’t visit me for pleasure, or unless they have nowhere else to go.  Drink deep!”

They drank; and then Sidwell looking at Hough said, “Well, what is it this time?  Going to reform again, or something of that kind, are you?”

Hough did not attempt evasion.  He knew it would be useless.  “No,” he said; “to tell you the truth, I’m lonesome—­beastly lonesome.”