It was not necessary either to ring or knock; the door was always unfastened; and, besides, she had been here so many, many times that she knew the house almost as well as her own home. She opened the door, stepped into a black hallway, and began to feel her way up the creaking staircase. There was the possibility, of course, that Hawkins was either out or already in bed; but if he were out she would leave a note in his room for him so that he would come over to the old pawn-shop when he returned, and if he were already in bed her message delivered through the door would soon bring Hawkins out of it again--Hawkins, since he had been driving that old car which he had created, was well accustomed to calls at all hours of the night. A thin, irregular streak of light, the only sign of light she had seen anywhere in the house, showed now at the threshold under Hawkins' ill-fitting door, as she reached the landing. She stepped quickly to the door and knocked. There was no answer. She knocked again. There was still no answer. Claire smiled a little whimsically. Hawkins was growing extravagant--he had gone out and left the light burning. She tried the door, and, finding it unlocked, opened it, stepped forward into the room--and with a sudden, low, half-hurt, half-frightened cry, stood still. Hawkins was neither out, nor was he in bed. Hawkins was sprawled partly on the floor and partly across a chair in which he had obviously been unable to preserve his balance. Several bottles, all empty but one, stood upon the table. There were two dirty glasses beside the bottles, and another one, broken, on the floor. Hawkins was snoring stertorously. It seemed somehow to Claire standing there that this was the last straw--and yet, too, there was only a world of pity in her heart for the old man. All the years rolled before her. She remembered as a child climbing upon his knee and pleading for the _tick-tick_--that great cumbersome silver watch, which, fallen out of his pocket now, dangled by its chain and swung in jerky rhythm to his breathing. She remembered the days when, a little older, she had dressed herself in her best clothes, and to Hawkins' huge delight had played at princess, while he drove her about in his old ramshackle hansom cab; and, later still, his gentle faithfulness to Paul Veniza in his trouble, and to her--and the love, and a strange, always welcome, tenderness that he had ever shown her. Poor frail soul! Hawkins had been good to every one--but Hawkins! She could not leave him like this, but she was not strong enough alone to carry him to his bed. She turned and ran hurriedly downstairs. There was the widow Hedges, of course, the old landlady. Back at the end of the lower hall, Claire pounded upon a door. Presently a woman's voice answered her. A moment later a light appeared as the door was opened, and with it an apparition in an old gingham wrapper and curl papers.