The doctor believed that unlikely things happened every day. This view was not the result of inborn credulity but of much acquired knowledge of a secret sort. A serious, fastidious, and obviously earnest-minded young man, like Latham, was particularly liable to get into trouble of a grave kind. A manifestation of perfectly innocent sympathy could do it, and even less. An unguarded glance. An unconscious warmth of tone. Confound it! Yet he could not let a young countryman of his, a nice, likable young gentleman, vanish from under his nose without taking some steps. The doctor stepped out into the hall, attractively dim and cool in the middle of the day. Spire had disappeared, but the doctor had given up the hope of Cosmo's return. In a dark corner he perceived the shadowy shape of a cocked hat, and made out the old lieutenant leaning back against the wall with his arms crossed and his chin on his breast. He had a bottle of wine and a glass standing in front of him. "I suppose," thought the doctor, "this is what he comes ashore for." The product of twenty years of war. The reeking loom that converted such as he into food for guns had stopped suddenly. There would be no demand for heroes for a long, long time, and somehow the fact that the fellow had all his limbs about him made him even more pathetic. The doctor had almost forgotten Cosmo. He did not notice Spire coming down the stairs, and he started at the sound of the words, "I beg your pardon, sir," uttered almost in his ears. The elderly valet was very much shaken. He said in a low murmur, "I am nearly out of my mind, sir. My master . . ." "I know," interrupted the doctor. He pounced upon Spire like a bird of prey. "Come, what do you know about it?" This reception roused Spire's dislike of that sour and off-hand person like no medical man he had ever seen and certainly no gentleman. On the principle, "like master like man," Spire was more sensitive to manner than to any trait of personality. He pulled himself together and steadied his voice. "I know nothing, sir, except that you were the last person seen speaking to Mr. Latham." "You don't think I have got him in my pocket, do you?" asked Doctor Martel, noting the hostile stare. "Don't you attend your master when he retires for the night?" "I got dismissed early last night. I am sorry to say I sat downstairs after supper very late, listening to tales about one thing and another. I . . . I went to sleep there," added Spire with a sort of desperation. "Listening to tales," repeated the doctor jeeringly. "Pretty tales they must have been, too. Zillers is no company for a respectable English servant. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Well, and then?" "I went up, sir, and . . ." "In the middle of the night," suggested the doctor. "It was pretty late. I . . ."