olmes was bending over my chair, his flask in his
hand.

"My dear Watson," said the well-remembered voice, "I owe you a thousand
apologies. I had no idea that you would be so affected."

I gripped him by the arms.

"Holmes!" I cried. "Is it really you? Can it indeed be that you are
alive? Is it possible that you succeeded in climbing out of that awful
abyss?"

"Wait a moment," said he. "Are you sure that you are really fit to
discuss things? I have given you a serious shock by my unnecessarily
dramatic reappearance."

"I am all right, but indeed, Holmes, I can hardly believe my eyes. Good
heavens! to think that you--you of all men--should be standing in my
study." Again I gripped him by the sleeve, and felt the thin, sinewy arm
beneath it. "Well, you're not a spirit anyhow," said I. "My dear chap,
I'm overjoyed to see you. Sit down, and tell me how you came alive out
of that dreadful chasm."

He sat opposite to me, and lit a cigarette in his old, nonchalant
manner. He was dressed in the seedy frockcoat of the book merchant, but
the rest of that individual lay in a pile of white hair and old books
upon the table. Holmes looked even thinner and keener than of old, but
there was a dead-white tinge in his aquiline face which told me that his
life recently had not been a healthy one.

"I am glad to stretch myself, Watson," said he. "It is no joke when a
tall man has to take a foot off his stature for several hours on end.
Now, my dear fellow, in the matter of these explanations, we have, if I
may ask for your cooperation, a hard and dangerous night's work in front
of us. Perhaps it would be better if I gave you an account of the whole
situation when that work is finished."

"I am full of curiosity. I should much prefer to hear now."

"You'll come with me to-night?"

"When you like and where you like."

"This is, indeed, like the old days. We shall have time for a mouthful
of dinner before we need go. Well, then, about that chasm. I had no
serious difficulty in getting out of it, for the very simple reason that
I never was in it."

"You never were in it?"

"No, Watson, I never was in it. My note to you was absolutely genuine.
I had little doubt that I had come to the end of my career when I
perceived the somewhat sinister figure of the late Professor Moriarty
standing upon the narrow pathway which led to safety. I read an
inexorable purpose in his gray eyes. I exchanged some remarks with him,
therefore, and