rd the
click of a telephone receiver slipping from its crotch, and Barclay's
voice speaking, to some one below, of a steak, vegetables, salad, and
coffee. He stepped to the table, devoured two or three of the biscuits
ravenously, poured himself a glass of sherry, sipped, and then swallowed
it, and flung himself down upon a wide divan.

"Have you a cigarette?" he asked, as Barclay reentered. "I haven't
smoked in three days. That's worse than mere hunger, you know."

"I believe you!"

Barclay pushed a silver box across the table, and seating himself
opposite, touched a match to the cigar which he had been about to light
at the Rathbawnes' door, and which he still held between his lips.

"Help yourself," he added. "Your supper will be up presently. Meanwhile,
shall I fire away, or will you?"

Cavendish let the first smoke from his cigarette curl slowly up his
cheek before replying. In the full light now first resting upon it, his
face showed as that of a man approximately Barclay's age, but pinched by
want, and deeply lined by dissipation. His under lids were puffy and
discolored, and a dozen heavy creases ran, fan-like, from the corners of
his eyes. Hair already turning white and an unkempt mustache and beard
completed the picture. His clothes were faded and frayed, no linen was
visible, and his boots were cracked and soggy. There was nothing about
him to suggest the former estate of gentleman save his hands, which,
while thin and tremulous, were clean and well-kept, in singular contrast
to the slovenliness of his attire.

"Age before respectability," he said in reply to Barclay's question,
with a shrug. "I'll go first. It will save your asking questions. We
parted in anger, Barclay."

"Let that pass," put in the Lieutenant-Governor, briefly. "Two years
wipe out all scores as petty as was the cause of our quarrel."

"Well, then," continued Cavendish more easily, "when I left Kenton City,
it was with the best intention in the world of making a fresh start in
some place where my story wasn't known. I went to New York. I had a
little money, but only a very little, and not the most remote idea of
how difficult it is for a man to make his way in a place where he is
unknown, particularly if he has no credentials and is too proud to ask
for any from his old associates. Moreover, I'd been drinking hard for
six months and there was no such thing as clipping it short all at once.
I had an idea of tapering off, and perhaps,