'You had better go now, De Castro, you have kept that hansom outside for more than an hour and a half; and besides, if you stay till daylight our friend here will stay longer, for I want to talk with him alone.' De Castro got up with a laugh that seemed genuine enough, and left us. D'Arcy, who was still on the sofa, then lapsed into a silence that became after a while rather awkward. He lay there, gazing abstractedly at the fireplace. 'Some of my friends call me, as you heard De Castro say the other night, Haroun-al-Raschid, and I suppose I am like him in some things. I am a bad sleeper, and to be amused by De Castro when I can't sleep is the chief of blessings. De Castro, however, is not so bad as he seems. A man may be a scandal-monger without being really malignant. I have known him go out of his way to do a struggling man a service.' 'You are a bad sleeper?' I said, in a tone that proclaimed at once that I was a bad sleeper also. 'Yes,' said he, 'and so are you, as I noticed the other night. I can always tell. There is something in the eyes when a man is a bad sleeper that proclaims it to me.' Then springing up from the divan and laying his hand upon my shoulder, he said, 'And you have a great trouble at the heart. You have had some great loss the effect of which is sapping the very fountains of your life. We should be friends. We must be friends. I asked you to call upon me because we must be friends.' His voice was so tender that I was almost unmanned. I will not dwell upon this part of my narrative; I will only say that I told him something of my story, and he told me his. I told him that a terrible trouble had unhinged the mind of a young lady whom I deeply loved, and that she had been lost on the Welsh hills. I felt that it was only right that I should know more of him before giving him the more intimate details connected with Winnie, myself, and the secrets of my family. He listened to every word with the deepest attention and sympathy. After a while he said, 'You must not go to your hotel to-night. A friend of mine who occupies two rooms is not sleeping here to-night, and I particularly wish for you to take his bed, so that I can see you in the morning. We shall not breakfast together. My breakfast is a peculiarly irregular meal. But when you wake ring your bedroom bell and order your own breakfast; afterwards we shall meet in the studio.' I did not in the least object to this arrangement, for I found his society a great relief.