And then oblivion did come to my aid.  For the first time in my life I swooned.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE STRANGE STORY OF THE MAN IN THE STREET

I have been anticipating for some weeks past, that things would become exciting,—­and they have.  But hardly in the way which I foresaw.  It is the old story of the unexpected happening.  Suddenly events of the most extraordinary nature have come crowding on me from the most unlooked-for quarters.

Let me try to take them in something like their proper order.

To begin with, Sydney has behaved very badly.  So badly that it seems likely that I shall have to re-cast my whole conception of his character.  It was nearly nine o’clock this morning when I,—­I cannot say woke up, because I do not believe that I had really been asleep—­but when I returned to consciousness.  I found myself sitting up in bed, trembling like some frightened child.  What had actually happened to me I did not know,—­could not guess.  I was conscious of an overwhelming sense of nausea, and, generally, I was feeling very far from well.  I endeavoured to arrange my thoughts, and to decide upon some plan of action.  Finally, I decided to go for advice and help where I had so often gone before,—­to Sydney Atherton.

I went to him.  I told him the whole gruesome story.  He saw, he could not help but see what a deep impress the events of the night had made on me.  He heard me to the end with every appearance of sympathy,—­and then all at once I discovered that all the time papa had been concealed behind a large screen which was in the room, listening to every word I had been uttering.  That I was dumfoundered, goes without saying.  It was bad enough in papa, but in Sydney it seemed, and it was, such treachery.  He and I have told each other secrets all our lives; it has never entered my imagination, as he very well knows, to play him false, in one jot or tittle; and I have always understood that, in this sort of matter, men pride themselves on their sense of honour being so much keener than women’s.  I told them some plain truths; and I fancy that I left them both feeling heartily ashamed of themselves.

One result the experience had on me,—­it wound me up.  It had on me the revivifying effect of a cold douche.  I realised that mine was a situation in which I should have to help myself.

When I returned home I learned that the man whom I had found in the street was himself again, and was as conscious as he was ever likely to be.  Burning with curiosity to learn the nature of the connection which existed between Paul and him, and what was the meaning of his oracular apostrophes, I merely paused to remove my hat before hastening into his apartment.

When he saw me, and heard who I was, the expressions of his gratitude were painful in their intensity.  The tears streamed down his cheeks.  He looked to me like a man who had very little life left in him.  He looked weak, and white, and worn to a shadow.  Probably he never had been robust, and it was only too plain that privation had robbed him of what little strength he had ever had.  He was nothing else but skin and bone.  Physical and mental debility was written large all over him.