on Alan's features, and sent his shadow hovering
behind him. All beyond was inscrutable; and John's dizzy brain rocked
with the shadow. Yet even so, it struck him that Alan was pale, and his
voice, when he spoke, unnatural.

"What brings you here to-night?" he began. "I don't want, God knows, to
seem unfriendly; but I cannot take you in, Nicholson; I cannot do it."

"Alan," said John, "you've just got to! You don't know the mess I'm in;
the governor's turned me out, and I daren't show face in an inn, because
they're down on me for murder or something!"

"For what?" cried Alan, starting.

"Murder, I believe," says John.

"Murder!" repeated Alan, and passed his hand over his eyes. "What was
that you were saying?" he asked again.

"That they were down on me," said John. "I'm accused of murder, by what
I can make out; and I've really had a dreadful day of it, Alan, and I
can't sleep on the roadside on a night like this--at least, not with a
portmanteau," he pleaded.

"Hush!" said Alan, with his head on one side; and then, "Did you hear
nothing?" he asked.

"No," said John, thrilling, he knew not why, with communicated terror.
"No, I heard nothing; why?" And then, as there was no answer, he
reverted to his pleading: "But I say, Alan, you've just got to take me
in. I'll go right away to bed if you have anything to do. I seem to have
been drinking; I was that knocked over. I wouldn't turn you away, Alan,
if you were down on your luck."

"No?" returned Alan. "Neither will I you, then. Come and let's get your
portmanteau."

The cabman was paid, and drove off down the long, lamp-lit hill, and the
two friends stood on the side-walk beside the portmanteau till the last
rumble of the wheels had died in silence. It seemed to John as though
Alan attached importance to this departure of the cab; and John, who was
in no state to criticise, shared profoundly in the feeling.

When the stillness was once more perfect, Alan shouldered the
portmanteau, carried it in, and shut and locked the garden door; and
then, once more, abstraction seemed to fall upon him, and he stood with
his hand on the key, until the cold began to nibble at John's fingers.

"Why are we standing here?" asked John.

"Eh?" said Alan blankly.

"Why, man, you don't seem yourself," said the other.

"No, I'm not myself," said Alan; and he sat down on the portmanteau and
put his face in his hands.

John stood beside him swaying a little, and looking about