In the library he found a small effaced-looking man with a thinnish gray beard sitting on the edge of a chair. The stranger might have been a piano-tuner, or one of those mysteriously efficient persons who are summoned in emergencies to adjust some detail of the domestic machinery. He blinked at Waythorn through a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles and said mildly: "Mr. Waythorn, I presume? I am Lily's father." Waythorn flushed. "Oh--" he stammered uncomfortably. He broke off, disliking to appear rude. Inwardly he was trying to adjust the actual Haskett to the image of him projected by his wife's reminiscences. Waythorn had been allowed to infer that Alice's first husband was a brute. "I am sorry to intrude," said Haskett, with his over-the-counter politeness. "Don't mention it," returned Waythorn, collecting himself. "I suppose the nurse has been told?" "I presume so. I can wait," said Haskett. He had a resigned way of speaking, as though life had worn down his natural powers of resistance. Waythorn stood on the threshold, nervously pulling off his gloves. "I'm sorry you've been detained. I will send for the nurse," he said; and as he opened the door he added with an effort: "I'm glad we can give you a good report of Lily." He winced as the _we_ slipped out, but Haskett seemed not to notice it. "Thank you, Mr. Waythorn. It's been an anxious time for me." "Ah, well, that's past. Soon she'll be able to go to you." Waythorn nodded and passed out. In his own room, he flung himself down with a groan. He hated the womanish sensibility which made him suffer so acutely from the grotesque chances of life. He had known when he married that his wife's former husbands were both living, and that amid the multiplied contacts of modern existence there were a thousand chances to one that he would run against one or the other, yet he found himself as much disturbed by his brief encounter with Haskett as though the law had not obligingly removed all difficulties in the way of their meeting. Waythorn sprang up and began to pace the room nervously. He had not suffered half so much from his two meetings with Varick. It was Haskett's presence in his own house that made the situation so intolerable. He stood still, hearing steps in the passage.