t time, what the young man's age could definitely be, but in a
moment he remembered the one pitiful way to account for the pathetic
question, and his voice was very gentle as he said:

"My boy, if you have your heart set on going to Maurice's, you shall go.
But surely, after this mysterious time together in my house, and knowing
that whatever you may be I welcome your companionship, you won't refuse
my request to let me go with you? To say that I've enjoyed it would be
to put a queer word to a terrible business that I have no way of
understanding. But until you came I was bitterly, hungrily lonely--"

"Don't! Don't!" cried the boy. He had begun to tremble at the earnest
tenderness of the voice. "I can't bear it! You don't know what you're
talking about! Oh! let me go to Maurice's, and let me go alone! If you
insist on going with me I can't stop you--"

"I do insist," said Mr. Montagu.

"But I can plead with you not to! And I can warn you what the price will
be! Oh--" and he stretched out his hands in so imploring a gesture that
his host could see the dull, dried blood of his cruelly injured
wrists--"for God's sake, for _God's_ sake, believe what I tell you! _If
you leave this house with me to-night, you're lost!_ Oh, God, God, I see
you don't believe me! Tell me this, I beg of you, I demand of you--did
you _feel_ that I was in the hall to-night, before you opened the door?"

"Yes," said Mr. Montagu.

"Had I made any noise?"

"No."

"Then I can prove to you that I know what I'm saying! I _did_ that! I
_made_ you feel me! Till after you let me in, I wasn't strong enough to
make a sound! Yet I made you know I was there! Am I telling the truth,
then? When I started to leave you, and now, even now, in warning you I
was doing, I _am_ doing, a more unselfish thing, a decenter thing, than
any you've ever done in all your years of life! It's because I like you
more than I want to! I'm unselfish, I tell you! I _wanted_ you to go to
Maurice's with me! I intended to make you, as I made you let me in! But
if you do, you'll find me out! I'll tell you! I won't be able to conceal
it! You'll know the truth about me! You've said all this was
mysterious--for your own sake, let it stay so! You needn't think all
truths are beautiful, and the truth about me is the most ghastly in the
universe!"

"I _want_ to find you out," said Mr. Montagu, steadying his voice. "I
want to know the truth."

"By that cross and crown of thorns that