mean so much to you and nothing
at all to me," implored the boy, "_don't go!_ I swear to you, _mine is a
more terrible secret than any living heart has ever held!_ You'll hate
me, and I don't want you to! Oh, _while_ I don't, while I'm _merciful_
to you, believe me, and let me go alone! No loneliness that _you_ could
ever suffer would equal the price that you will pay if you go with me!"

Though the sense of horror sweeping indomitably through him was worse
than any he had felt before, Mr. Montagu's answer was deliberate and
resolute:

"I told myself only a few minutes ago that I would sacrifice anything in
my life, almost my life itself, to--well, to this. Do you mean that the
price would be--my--death?"

He threw every possible significance demandingly into the word, and the
boy's voice was suddenly quiet in its tensity as he gazed back at him.

"It would be worse than death," he said solemnly. "If you let me go, and
face your loneliness here, there's a chance for you, though I've warned
you as it is. If you leave the house with me to-night, you're as lost as
I am, and I am irretrievably damned and always have been damned. As
truly as you see me standing before you now, the price is--madness."

"Come," said Mr. Montagu, and without another word he opened the door.

At Maurice's, Mr. Montagu led the way to the far side of the big room,
threading in a zigzag through the gleam of bright silver, the glitter of
white linen, the crimson of deep carnations. Maurice's in its own way
was admirably tasteful; as distinctively quiet and smooth in its manners
and rich hangings as it was distinctly loud in its lights and ragged in
its music. No after-theatre corner of Broadway had a crisper American
accent of vice, or displayed vice itself more delicately lacquered. The
place was as openly innocent as a street, with a street's sightless and
irresponsible gaze for what occurred in it. And nothing remarkable
occurred, save the fungus growth of what was to occur elsewhere.

Mr. Montagu, on the way to the table, looked several times over his
shoulder, ostensibly to speak to his companion, but in reality to see
whether the extraordinary boy was running the gantlet of eyes he had
presupposed he would. And each time he met inquisitive faces that were
not only staring but listening.

His own conspicuousness was grilling, but it was part and parcel of his
insistent bargain; he could understand, quite sympathetically, how the
youth's