“Can't? Oh yes, you can. We can all do--anything. It's not too late; there's just sufficient time. Chilcote,” he added, suddenly, “don't you see that the thing has been madness all along--has been like playing with the most infernal explosives? You may thank whatever you have faith in that nobody has been smashed up! You are going back. Do you understand me? You are going back--now, to-day, before it's too late.” There was a great change in Loder; his strong, imperturbable face was stirred; he was moved in both voice and manner. Time after time he repeated his injunction--reasoning, expostulating, insisting. It almost seemed that he fought some strenuous invisible force rather than the shattered man before him. Chilcote moved nervously in his seat. It was the first real clash of personalities. He felt it--recognized it by instinct. The sense of domination had fallen on him; he knew himself impotent in the other's hands. Whatever he might attempt in moments of solitude, he possessed no voice in presence of this invincible second self. For a while he struggled--he did not fight, he struggled to resist--then, lifting his eyes, he met Loder's. “And what will you do?” he said, weakly. Loder returned his questioning gaze; but almost immediately he turned aside. “I?” he said. “Oh, I shall leave London.” XXVII But Loder did not leave London. And the hour of two on the day following his dismissal of Chilcote found him again in his sitting-room. He sat at the centre-table surrounded by a cloud of smoke; a pipe was between his lips and the morning's newspapers lay in a heap beside his elbow. To the student of humanity his attitude was intensely interesting. It was the attitude of a man trammelled by the knowledge of his strength. Before him, as he sat smoking, stretched a future of absolute nothingness; and towards this blank future one portion of his consciousness--a struggling and as yet scarcely sentient portion--pushed him inevitably; while another--a vigorous, persistent, human portion--cried to him to pause. So actual, so clamorous was this silent mental combat that had raged unceasingly since the moment of his renunciation that at last in physical response to it he pushed back his chair. “It's too late!” he said, aloud. “I'm a fool. It's too late!” Then abruptly, astonishingly, as though in direct response to his spoken thought, the door opened and Chilcote walked into the room. Slowly Loder rose and stared at him. The feeling he acknowledged to himself was anger; but below the anger a very different sensation ran riotously strong. And it was in time to this second feeling, this sudden, lawless joy, that his pulses beat as he turned a cold face on the intruder. “Well?” he said, sternly.