He sat down and lit his pipe. The accursed bell rang again, insistently, with infinitesimal pauses between the rings. He got up violently, with a loud curse. The blood surged again in his head; the ticket collector and the maddening train and Mrs. Bantam crowded back and concentrated themselves into the hateful exasperating shape of the telephone. He took off the receiver and shouted, "_Hullo! hullo!_ What is it? What is it? Stop that ringing!" There was no answer; the bell continued to ring. He had banged his pipe against the instrument, and the first ash was scattered over the papers on the table. He took it out of his mouth, and furiously waggled the receiver bracket up and down. He had heard that this caused annoyance, if not actual pain, to the telephone operator, and he hoped fervently that this was true. He wanted to hurt somebody. He would have liked to pick up the instrument and hurl it in the composite face of the evening's persecutors. His pipe rolled off on to the floor. He shouted again, "Oh, _what_ is it? _Hullo! hullo! hullo!_" The ringing abruptly ceased, and a low, anxious voice was heard: "Hullo! hullo! hullo! Is that you, John? Hullo!"--Stephen's voice. "Yes; what is it?" "Can you come round a minute? I _must_ see you. It's _urgent_." "What about?" said John, with a vague premonition. "About--about--you know what!--about the other night--you _must_ come! I can't leave the house." "No, I'm damned if I do--I've had enough of that." At that moment John felt that he hated his old friend. The accumulated annoyances of the day merged in and reinforced the new indignation he had felt against Stephen since the sack incident and the revelations of Mrs. Bantam. He had had enough. He refused to be further entangled in that business. Then Stephen spoke again, appealingly, despairingly. "John--you _must_! It's--it's _come up_." VI John Egerton prepared himself to go round. He cursed himself for a weak fool; he reviled his fate, and Emily and Stephen Byrne. But he prepared himself. He was beaten. But as he opened the front door the bell rang, and he saw Stephen himself on the doorstep--a pale and haggard Stephen, blinking weakly at the sudden blaze of light in the hall. "I came round after all," he said. "It's urgent!" But he stepped in doubtfully. The two curses of John Egerton's composition were his shyness and his soft-heartedness. When he saw Stephen he tried to look implacable; he tried to feel as angry as he had felt a moment before. But that weary and anxious face, that moment's hesitation on the step, and the whole shamefaced aspect of his friend melted him in a moment. Something terrible must be going on to make the vital, confident Stephen Byrne look like that. Once more, he must be helped. In the study, sipping like a wounded man at a comforting tumbler of whisky and water, Stephen told his story, beginning in the fashion of one dazed, with long pauses.