When he heard Chilcote lay down his tumbler he looked back again.  “Well, what is it?” he said.  “What have you come for?” He strove resolutely to keep his voice severe, but, try as he might, he could not quite subdue the eager force that lay behind his words.  Once again, as on the night of their second interchange, life had become a phoenix, rising to fresh existence even while he sifted its ashes.  “Well?” he said, once again.

Chilcote had set down his glass.  He was nervously passing his handkerchief across his lips.  There was something in the gesture that attracted Loder.  Looking at him more attentively, he saw what his own feelings and the other’s conventional dress had blinded him to—­the almost piteous panic and excitement in his visitor’s eyes.

“Something’s gone wrong!” he said, with abrupt intuition.

Chilcote started.  “Yes—­no—­that is, yes,” he stammered.

Loder moved round the table.  “Something’s gone wrong,” he repeated.  “And you’ve come to tell me.”

The tone unnerved Chilcote; he suddenly dropped into a chair.  “It—­it wasn’t my fault,” he began.  “I—­I have had a horrible time!”

Loder’s lips tightened.  “Yes,” he said, “yes—­I understand.”

The other glanced up with a gleam of his old suspicion “’Twas all my nerves, Loder—­”

“Of course.  Yes, of course.”  Loder’s interruption was curt.

Chilcote eyed him doubtfully.  Then recollection took the place of doubt, and a change passed over his expression.  “It wasn’t my fault,” he began, hastily.  “On my soul, it wasn’t!  It was Crapham’s beastly fault for showing her into the morning-room—­”

Loder kept silent.  His curiosity had flared into sudden life at the other’s words, but he feared to break the shattered train of thought even by a word.

In the silence Chilcote moved uneasily.  “You see,” he went on, at last, “when I was here with you I—­I felt strong.  I —­I—­” He stopped.

“Yes, yes.  When you were here with me you felt strong.”

“Yes, that’s it.  While I was here, I felt I could do the thing.  But when I went home—­when I went up to my rooms—­” Again he paused, passing his handkerchief across his forehead.

“When you went up to your rooms?” Loder strove hard to keep his control.

“To my room—?  Oh, I—­I forget about that.  I forget about the night” He hesitated confusedly.  “All I remember is the coming down to breakfast next morning—­this morning—­at twelve o’clock—­”

Loder turned to the table and poured himself out some whiskey.  “Yes,” he acquiesced, in a very quiet voice.

At the word Chilcote rose from his seat.  His disquietude was very evident.  “Oh, there was breakfast on the table when I came down-stairs—­breakfast with flowers and a horrible, dazzling glare of sun.  It was then, Loder, as I stood and looked into the room, that the impossibility of it all came to me—­that I knew I couldn’t stand it—­couldn’t go on.”