Trafford watched the Englishman with fascinated eyes. In his hour of deep darkness this smiling, confident, almost too well-dressed embodiment of prosperity seemed strangely comforting and reposeful. For the briefest of moments his present surroundings were blotted out, and his mind rushed back through the intervening years to the glorious days when they were both undergraduates at Oxford. But the illusion was of short duration, the awakening bitter. For as Saunders read, a smile eloquent of contemptuous astonishment spread over his face. "Angela Knox!" he exclaimed. "My dear, demented friend, what a _bétisse_!" "The purest, most perfect specimen of womanhood----" "Angela Knox!" repeated Saunders cruelly. "Ye gods! Oh, yes, I know the lady. We met her at Newport--a big, buxom blonde, with the intellect of a sparrow. Tissue, tissue, my boy, and no soul! Features, millions also, I concede, but no sense of humour. In six weeks she would bore you; in six months you would bore her; in a year the machinery of the law--your obliging American divorce courts----" "Silence!" roared Trafford. "You would poke fun at the holiest corner of a man's heart. I tell you, Bob, I so love this woman that had it not been for a miracle, I should have died five minutes ago with her name on my lips." "And I'm the miracle?" questioned Saunders, tapping himself lightly on his faultless waistcoat. "Miracle number two," replied the American, sinking into a chair. "That gun was kept for burglars. To preclude the possibility of an accident through some fool of a servant's mishandling, I kept the first chamber empty. Idiot that I am!--I forgot the precaution. But a second and doubtless more conclusive attempt would have been made had not you butted in----" "And for Angela Knox!" cried Saunders with an unfeeling grin. "Now had it been a brunette----" "This is no joking matter. For Heaven's sake, do be serious!" Saunders brushed a speck of mud off his patent-leather boots. "So I'm to take you seriously, Nervy? Well, then, listen, my dear, irresponsible, melodramatic friend. Love is a wonderful thing. It is rightly considered the beginning and the end of all things. I say so, _moi qui vous parle_, though I've been married nearly two years. But this infatuation--this calf-love of yours for a hypertrophied blonde with the conversational powers of a turnip, is, _ipso facto_, ridiculous. You will love some day, friend of my youth, but if your love is unrequited you will not turn to the revolver for solace." "What are you letting me in for?" asked the bewildered Trafford. A powerful reaction had left him weak--weak in voice and weak in spirit.