ven more horrible than you suppose or can ever
imagine."

I was not thinking of myself, nor of my love, nor of any particular
incident of the fire that still went on burning in my brain. My tone was
doubtless confidential, but I was meditating no special confidence when
my companion drew one with his next words. These, however, came after a
pause, in which my eyes had fallen from his face, but in which I heard
him emptying his glass.

"What do you mean?" he whispered. "That there were other
circumstances--things which haven't got into the papers?"

"God knows there were," I answered, my face in my hands; and, my
grief brought home to me, there I sat with it in the presence of that
stranger, without compunction and without shame.

He sprang up and paced the room. His tact made me realize my weakness,
and I was struggling to overcome it when he surprised me by suddenly
stopping and laying a rather tremulous hand upon my shoulder.

"You--It wouldn't do you any good to speak of those circumstances, I
suppose?" he faltered.

"No: not now: no good at all."

"Forgive me," he said, resuming his walk. "I had no business--I felt so
sorry--I cannot tell you how I sympathize! And yet--I wonder if you will
always feel so?"

"No saying how I shall feel when I am a man again," said I. "You see
what I am at present." And, pulling myself together, I rose to find my
new friend quite agitated in his turn.

"I wish we had some more brandy," he sighed. "I'm afraid it's too late
to get any now."

"And I'm glad of it," said I. "A man in my state ought not to look at
spirits, or he may never look past them again. Thank goodness, there are
other medicines. Only this morning I consulted the best man on nerves in
London. I wish I'd gone to him long ago."

"Harley Street, was it?"

"Yes."

"Saw you on his doorstep, by Jove!" cried Rattray at once. "I was
driving over to Hampstead, and I thought it was you. Well, what's the
prescription?"

In my satisfaction at finding that he had not been dogging me
intentionally (though I had forgotten the incident till he reminded me
of it), I answered his question with unusual fulness.

"I should go abroad," said Rattray. "But then, I always am abroad; it's
only the other day I got back from South America, and I shall up anchor
again before this filthy English winter sets in."

Was he a sailor after all, or only a well-to-do wanderer on the face of
the earth? He now mentioned that he was o