Mr. Marcus found his voice. “Not at all. This must be a different Adrian Hall altogether.” But it wasn’t. Mr. Marcus discovered that when he went upstairs again and found Adrian waiting for him by the upper hallway extension. “I came up and listened in,” Adrian said. “I had an idea that you were checking on me, Mr. Marcus. When Mrs. Ponder told us you had a call from Kansas City, I was sure of it.” “I had to do it,” Mr. Marcus said. “Once Jay had told me about your spiders, I had no choice.” Adrian took Mr. Marcus’ arm and led him away down the hall. Mr. Marcus went along unprotestingly, numb with disbelief at his own composure. It was downright frightening, he thought, to find himself so unfrightened. Adrian’s room was much like Mr. Marcus’ own, or like any other in the Ponder house. Adrian seated Mr. Marcus on his one chair and himself on the bed, and they measured each other equably over the flimsy expanse of Adrian’s writing-table. In any decent piece of fiction, Mr. Marcus thought, there must be some element of suspense; in fiction running to such a situation as this, even of outright horror. But somehow, being dragged to the very lair of the monster he had set out to scotch brought him no touch of uneasiness. He felt sympathetic rather than fearful, and he liked Adrian Hall more, if that were possible, than ever. “I’m really glad you unmasked me,” Adrian said. “I need help, Mr. Marcus. I need help more than I ever needed it in my life.” “I’ll do anything within my power,” Mr. Marcus promised. “But I’m equally interested in helping Kitty, else I wouldn’t have bothered with your past at all.... Your problem is that you can’t keep your spiders and marry Kitty too, isn’t it?” Adrian nodded. “It wouldn’t work. Not because Kitty might object to them, for she wouldn’t--they’re not really offensive, and it’s no fault of their own that they’re here--but because a honeymoon without privacy is no honeymoon at all. My friends are quite intelligent, not to mention inquisitive, and keeping them wouldn’t be fair to either Kitty or myself.” “You could get rid of them.” “That wouldn’t be fair to _them_,” Adrian said. “And since I’m responsible for their being here, and they’re responsible for my reformation--” He broke off apologetically. “It would be better if I told you about it from the beginning, wouldn’t it?” “It would,” Mr. Marcus agreed, and settled himself to listen. “First,” Adrian said, “what your friend of the _Star_ told you is perfectly true. I drank and scrounged quarters on the street and slept in gutters, not because I liked it but because I couldn’t stop doing it any more than poor Jay Kirby can stop having fits. Until I got help, that is.