There was nothing that Montague could do save to sit and listen to this outburst of wretchedness.  His attempts to soothe the old man only had the effect of exciting him more.

“Why does it all have to fall on me?” he moaned.  “I want to be like other people—­I want to live!  And instead, I’m like a man with a pack of hungry wolves prowling round him—­that’s what it’s like!  It’s like Nature—­hungry and cruel and savage!  You think you know what life is; it seems so beautiful and gentle and pleasant—­that’s when you’re on top!  But now I’m down, and I know what it is—­it’s a thing like a nightmare, that reaches out for you to clutch you and crush you!  And you can’t get away from it—­you’re helpless as a rat in a corner—­you’re damned—­you’re damned!” The miserable man’s voice broke in a cry of despair, and he sank down in a heap in front of Montague, shaking and sobbing.  The other was trembling slightly, and stricken with awe.

There was a long silence, and then the stranger lifted his tear-stained face, and Montague helped to support him.  “Have a little more of the whisky,” said he.

“No,” the other answered feebly, “I’d better not.”

“—­My doctors won’t let me have whisky,” he added, after a while.  “That’s my liver.  I’ve so many don’ts, you know, that it takes a note-book to keep track of them.  And all of them together do me no good!  Think of it—­I have to live on graham crackers and milk—­actually, not a thing has passed my lips for two years but graham crackers and milk.”

And then suddenly, with a start, it came to Montague where he had seen this wrinkled old face before.  It was Laura Hegan’s uncle, whom the Major had pointed out to him in the dining-room of the Millionaires’ Club!  Old Henry S. Grimes, who was really only sixty, but looked eighty; and who owned slum tenements, and evicted more people in a month than could be crowded into the club-house!

Montague gave no sign, but sat holding the man in his arms.  A little trickle of blood came from under the handkerchief and ran down his cheek; Montague felt him tremble as he touched this with his ringer.

“Is it much of a cut?” he asked.

“Not much,” said Montague; “two or three stitches, perhaps.”

“Send for my family physician,” the other added.  “If I should faint, or anything, you’ll find his name in my card-case.  What’s that?”

There was the sound of voices down the road.  “Hello!"’ Montague shouted; and a moment later two men in automobile costume came running toward him.  They stopped, staring in dismay at the sight which confronted them.

At Montague’s suggestion they made haste to find a log by means of which they lifted the auto sufficiently to drag out the body of the chauffeur.  Montague saw that it was quite cold.

He went back to old Grimes.  “Where do you wish to go?” he asked.

The other hesitated.  “I was bound for the Harrisons’—­” he said.