Six hundred and ninety. A pair of brown boots were outside, and Hugh stopped and looked at them critically. "An unpleasant colour," he reflected; "most unpleasant." A passing chambermaid glanced at him suspiciously, but Hugh stared right through her. He was supremely unconscious of her existence; only those two names mocked him wherever he looked, and the pair of unpleasant brown boots. He wondered if their owner was equally unpleasant. Slowing he walked on. Six hundred and ninety-three—six hundred and ninety-four. He staggered a little, and leaned for a moment against the wall. Then, very deliberately, he pulled himself together and listened. There was no sound coming from the room at all. He listened for voices, but all was silent; and then suddenly he heard the click of a cupboard door closing. So Doris was inside. Doris was inside—and—— Hugh took a deep breath; then he knocked. "Who’s there?" The Colt’s voice, a little startled, came from the room, and Hugh’s heart gave a great suffocating jump. His lips moved, but only a hoarse whisper came. He heard steps coming towards the door; the handle turned, and the next moment he was looking into the Colt’s eyes. For one second there shone in them the look of a great joy. Then she frowned quickly. "What are you doing here?" she demanded, "I don’t want to see you at all." He pushed past her into the room, and for a while the relief was so wonderful that he could only stand there staring at her foolishly. Then at last he found his voice. "Oh, my Colt," he whispered, brokenly, "thank God I’ve found you!" She closed the door and came slowly towards him. "Thank God I’ve found you—in time!" He said the last two words under his breath, but she heard them. "What do you mean by ’in time’?" she said, and her voice showed no sign of relenting. "If you think I’m going to come home with you, you’re quite wrong. Besides," she added, irrelevantly, "the last train’s a beastly one. It stops everywhere." Hugh looked at her with a faint smile, and then sat down on the edge of the bed. "Colt," he said, slowly, "am I the biggest brute in the world? Am I a cad, and a poisonous beast? Am I, Colt?" She stared at him, a little perplexed; then she shrugged her shoulders. "Certainly not," she answered. "You’re merely an inconsiderate and selfish man." "Because," he went on, ignoring her remark, "if it’s any gratification to you to know it, I should have to be everything I said to deserve such a punishment as you’ve given me." "I don’t see it at all," she remarked. "But—as a matter of fact—if you want to know, I wasn’t going to stay away for good, as I said in my letter. I was going to come back in a week or so." "What made you change your mind?" he asked, quietly. "Something which happened to-night." For a moment his collar felt strangely tight. "Something which recalled you as you used to be—not as you are now. It made me determine to give you another chance."