“Yes, sir.” Allsopp crossed the hall. As the door was opened Chilcote passed his handkerchief from one hand to the other in the tension of hope and fear; then, as the sound of his own name in the shrill tones of a telegraph-boy reached his ears, he let the handkerchief drop to the ground. Allsopp took the yellow envelope and carried it to his master. “A telegram, sir,” he said. “And the boy wishes to know if there is an answer.” Picking up Chilcote's handkerchief, he turned aside with elaborate dignity. Chilcote's hands were so unsteady that he could scarcely insert his finger under the flap of the envelope. Tearing off a corner, he wrenched the covering apart and smoothed out the flimsy pink paper. The message was very simple, consisting of but seven words: “Shall expect you at eleven to-night.-LODER.” He read it two or three times, then he looked up. “No answer,” he said, mechanically; and to his own ears the relief in his voice sounded harsh and unnatural. Exactly as the clocks chimed eleven Chilcote mounted the stairs to Loder's rooms. But this time there was more of haste than of uncertainty in his steps, and, reaching the landing, he crossed it in a couple of strides and knocked feverishly on the door. It opened at once, and Loder stood before him. The occasion was peculiar. For a moment neither spoke; each involuntarily looked at the other with new eyes and under changed conditions. Each had assumed a fresh stand-point in the other's thought. The passing astonishment, the half-impersonal curiosity that had previously tinged their relationship, was cast aside, never to be reassumed. In each, the other saw himself--and something more. As usual, Loder was the first to recover himself. “I was expecting you,” he said. “Won't you come in?” The words were almost the same as his words of the night before, but his voice had a different ring; just as his face, when he drew back into the room, had a different expression--a suggestion of decision and energy that had been lacking before. Chilcote caught the difference as he crossed the threshold, and for a bare second a flicker of something like jealousy touched him. But the sensation was fleeting. “I have to thank you!” he said, holding out his hand. He was too well bred to show by a hint that he understood the drop in the other's principles. But Loder broke down the artifice. “Let's be straight with each other, since everybody else has to be deceived,” he said, taking the other's hand. “You have nothing to thank me for, and you know it. It's a touch of the old Adam. You tempted me, and I fell.” He laughed, but below the laugh ran a note of something like triumph--the curious triumph of a man who has known the tyranny of strength and suddenly appreciates the freedom of a weakness. “You fully realize the thing you have proposed?” he added, in a different tone. “It's not too late to retract, even now.”