"Well, if it's that bad, it's worth forgetting for an hour or two!" I announced. He laughed again, relaxingly. I took a firmer and more fraternal grip on his arm. And side by side we went up the steps and through the door into the quietness of that sober-fronted house which I still called by the empty name of home. In five minutes I had a hickory log ablaze in the fireplace, the library-chairs drawn up, and Criswell, my captive, with his hat and coat off. At his side stood a plate of biscuits and a glass of Bristol Milk. But he seemed to find more consolation in sitting back and peering at the play of the flames. His face was a very tired one. The skin was clammy and dead-looking; and yet from the depths of that fatigue flared the familiar ironic white lights of wakefulness. I think I knew about how he felt. We sat there without speaking, yet not unconscious of a silent communion of thought. I knew, however, that Bristol Milk was not in the habit of leaving a man long tongued-tied. So I turned to refill his glass. I had noticed that his hands were shaky, just as I had noticed the telltale twitch to one of his eyelids. But when his uncontrolled fingers accidently knocked the glass from the edge of the table, it gave me a bit of a start. He sat there looking studiously down at the scattered pieces of crystal. "It's hell!" he suddenly burst out. "What is?" I inquired. "Being in this sort of shape!" was his vehement response. I did not permit myself to look at him. Sympathy was not the sort of thing he needed. Seventy-year-old sherry, I felt, was more to the purpose. "Especially when we haven't any excuse for it," I lazily commented, passing him a second glass, filling it, and turning to watch the fire. "Warming stuff, that Bristol Milk," he said with a catch of the breath that was too short to be called a sigh. Then, laughing and wiping the sweat from his forehead, he went on with an incoherence that approached that of childhood. "I've _got an excuse_." I waited for a moment or two. "What is it?" "That man you saw trailing me around the square, for one thing." "Even that isn't altogether an excuse," I maintained. "But it's what he stands for," protested my visitor. He sat staring into the fire for a minute or two. I sat beside him, again conscious of some inarticulate and evasive companionship. "How did it begin?" I finally asked. He took a deep breath. Then he closed his eyes. And when he spoke he did so without opening them. "I don't think I could explain," was his listless answer. "Make a try at it," I urged. "Let's ventilate the thing, canalize it. Let's throw a little light and order into it." He moved his head up and down, slowly, as though he had some vague comprehension of the psychology of confession, some knowledge of the advantages of "exteriorating" secret offenses. Then he sat very still and tense.