'll--I'll see you through."

Lewis gripped the extended hand with all his strength, then he sat down
and chatted eagerly for half an hour. He did not see that his father was
tired.

"Go and tell H lne," he said when Lewis at last paused. "Telephone her
that you want to talk to her."

H lne was on the point of going out. She told Lewis to come and see her
at ten the next morning. He went, and as he was standing just off the
hall, waiting to be announced, the knocker on the great front door was
raised, and fell with a resounding clang. Before the doorman could open,
it fell again.

Lewis, startled, looked around. The door opened. A large man in evening
dress staggered in. His clothes were in disorder. His high hat had been
rubbed the wrong way in spots. But Lewis hardly noticed the clothes. His
eyes were fastened on the man's face. It was bloated, pouched, and
mottled with purple spots and veins. Fear filled it. Not a sudden fear,
but fear that was ingrown, that proclaimed that face its habitual
habitation. The man's eyes bulged and stared, yet saw nothing that was.
He blundered past the doorman.

Lewis caught a glimpse of a tawdry woman peering out from a hansom at
the disappearing man. "Thank Gawd!" he heard her say as the cab drove
off.

With one hand on the wall the man guided himself toward the stairs at
the end of the hall. On the first step he stumbled and would have fallen
had it not been for a quick footman. The man recovered his balance and
struck viciously at the servant. Then he clutched the baluster, and
stumbled his way up the stairs.

Lewis was frightened. He turned and hurried through the great, silent
drawing-rooms, through the somber library, to the little passage to
H lne's room. He met the footman who had gone to announce him. He did
not stop to hear what he said. He pushed by him and knocked at H lne's
door.

"Come in," she cried.

Lewis stood before her. He was excited.

"H lne," he said, "there's a man come in--a horrible man. He pushed by
the servants. He's gone upstairs. I think--well, I think he's not
himself. Do you want me to do anything?"

H lne was standing. At Lewis's first words she had flushed; then she
turned pale, deathly pale, and steadied herself with one hand on the
back of a chair. She put the other hand to the side of her head and
pressed it there.

"That's it," she said; "he's--he's not himself." Then she faced Lewis.
"Lew, that's my--that's Lord Derl that you saw.