rely was reality; that shadowy business out there only
the drear sound of a wind one must and did keep out--like the poverty
and grime which had no real existence for the secure and prosperous. He
drank champagne. It helped to fortify reality, to make shadows seem more
shadowy. And down in the smoking-room he sat before the fire, in one of
those chairs which embalm after-dinner dreams. He grew sleepy there, and
at eleven o'clock rose to go home. But when he had once passed down the
shallow marble steps, out through the revolving door which let in no
draughts, he was visited by fear, as if he had drawn it in with the
breath of the January wind. Larry's face; and the girl watching it! Why
had she watched like that? Larry's smile; and the flowers in his hand?
Buying flowers at such a moment! The girl was his slave-whatever he told
her, she would do. But she would never be able to stop him. At this very
moment he might be rushing to give himself up!

His hand, thrust deep into the pocket of his fur coat, came in contact
suddenly with something cold. The keys Larry had given him all that time
ago. There they had lain forgotten ever since. The chance touch decided
him. He turned off towards Borrow Street, walking at full speed. He
could but go again and see. He would sleep better if he knew that he had
left no stone unturned. At the corner of that dismal street he had to
wait for solitude before he made for the house which he now loathed with
a deadly loathing. He opened the outer door and shut it to behind him.
He knocked, but no one came. Perhaps they had gone to bed. Again and
again he knocked, then opened the door, stepped in, and closed it
carefully. Candles lighted, the fire burning; cushions thrown on the
floor in front of it and strewn with flowers! The table, too, covered
with flowers and with the remnants of a meal. Through the half-drawn
curtain he could see that the inner room was also lighted. Had they gone
out, leaving everything like this? Gone out! His heart beat. Bottles!
Larry had been drinking!

Had it really come? Must he go back home with this murk on him; knowing
that his brother was a confessed and branded murderer? He went quickly,
to the half-drawn curtains and looked in. Against the wall he saw a bed,
and those two in it. He recoiled in sheer amazement and relief. Asleep
with curtains undrawn, lights left on? Asleep through all his knocking!
They must both be drunk. The blood rushed up in his neck. A