The doctor was seated behind his table, Pleasance on a chair in the one small window recess. With three people in it the room looked more like a well than ever. With three people? Nay, with four. Woolley shut the door behind him very softly and set his teeth. For behind the doctor stood the tall gentleman. The assistant smiled viciously. He was not prepared for this, but his nerves were strung to-day. "A trick?" he said, looking from one to another. "Very well. I know what to do. I can guess what my answer is to be, doctor, and need scarcely stay to hear it. Shall I go?" "No! no!" the doctor replied, hurriedly. He was distressed and perturbed, perhaps by the menace which underlay the other's words. As for the tall gentleman, he gazed gravely over his beard, while Pleasance looked through the window, her face hot. "No, no, I have something to say which affects you. And this gentleman here----" "Has he anything to say?" the assistant retorted, eyeing his antagonist. "I am ready to hear it--before I take out a warrant against him for attempting to commit suicide. It is punishable with a considerable imprisonment, my friend!" "I am no friend of yours," was the stranger's reply, given very gravely. "You do not know me, Edgar Woolley." The assistant started. It was the first time he had heard the tall gentleman's voice, and for a breathing space, while the looked two on one another, he seemed to be racking his memory. But he got no result, and he retorted with a bitter laugh, "No, I do not know you. Nor you me--yet!" "Yes, I do," was the unexpected answer. "Too well!" "Bah!" Woolley exclaimed, though it was evident that he was ill at ease. "Let us have an end of these heroics! If you have anything to say, say it." "I will," the tall gentleman answered. He was still quiet, but there was a glitter in his eyes. "I have already outlined my story, now I must ask Dr. Partridge to hear it more at length. Many years ago there was a young man, almost a boy, employed in the offices of a great firm in Liverpool--a poor boy, very poor, but of a good and an old family." Woolley's smile of derision became fixed, so to speak. But he did not interrupt, and the other after a pause went on. "This lad made the acquaintance of a medical student a little older than himself, and was led by him--I think he was weak and sensitive and easily led--into gambling. He lost more than he could pay. His mother was a widow, almost without means. To meet the debt, small as it was, would have ruined her."