"You are vexed with me for teasing you with so many tiresome questions. Oh, forgive me! I ought not to take advantage of your kindness; but we have grown to depend upon you so; and I will promise not to worry you with any other, if you will only answer me this one. Is he changed--much changed?" "I am afraid," replies Jim, with the slowness of one who is trying to convey unpleasant tidings in the least unpleasant terms, "that you must be prepared to find him a good deal altered." "Altered! How?" "I do not quite know how to describe it"--uneasily--"but you must not be shocked if you find him a good deal changed in looks; and he is--he seems, in a very excited state." She makes a clutch at his hand. "Do you mean"--her voice has sunk to a horror-struck whisper--"that he is--mad?" "Mad! Oh, of course not," with a strained laugh; "you must not jump to such conclusions. But I do not think he is quite himself, that is all. He looks as if he had not eaten or slept for a fortnight; and if you play such tricks as that with yourself, you must expect to get a little off your balance." She is still terrifiedly clutching his hand, though with no consciousness of doing so, nor that the fingers so tightly gripped by her are not made of dry stick. "You must not look so frightened," he says soothingly. "I would not have said anything to you, only that I thought it better you should be prepared--that it should not take you quite by surprise; and also because I wanted to give you a hint, that you might be a little careful what you say to him, or, at all events, how you say it." Still she does not speak, and there is scarcely any diminution of the horror of her look. "If you do not mind, I think it would be as well to have someone within call, if he--he--became--unreasonable." "Do you think," she asks, with a sort of scorn, "that I am afraid of him--afraid for myself?" "No, that I am sure you are not; but I cannot shake off the idea that--poor fellow!--he may be on the verge of some grave illness; and in that sort of case one never knows what may happen. So, if you do not mind----" "As you please," she answers, docile even now. "Do as you think best; and will you tell him that I am ready to see him?" The misgivings with which Jim complies with this request are not much allayed by the manner and voice of him who receives it, and who has been raging up and down the narrow corridor. "She will not see me, I suppose?" "On the contrary, she will see you now. But stay!" catching him by the arm as he springs past him. "One moment! For God's sake control yourself! Behave like a gentleman. Do not make her a scene; she is not up to it." Byng's answer is to fling resentfully away the detaining hand of his Mentor, while he says, with a furious look coming into his bloodshot eyes: "What do you mean by keeping me here, preaching to me, while _she_ is waiting for me?"