He had brought a small wash-hand basin full to the brim, and a loaf of warm, new bread. As the steam of the hot soup reached me, I realized that I was a very hungry animal, whatever else I might be besides. It may have been the steam of the soup that rallied Constance. I know that within two minutes I was feeding her with it from a cracked teacup. It is a wonderful thing to watch the effect of a few mouthfuls of hot soup upon an exhausted woman, whose exhaustion is due as much to lack of food as need of rest. There was no spoon, but the teacup, though cracked, was clean, and I found a tumbler in a luxurious little cabinet near the chair one felt was dedicated to the Fleet Street magnate whose room we had invaded. A tumbler is almost as convenient to drink soup from as a cup, but requires more careful manipulation when hot. If the side of the tumbler becomes soupy, it can easily be wiped with the crumb of new bread. Wardle seemed to be as sufficiently nourished as he was neatly dressed; but he found a certain vicarious pleasure, I think, in watching Constance and myself at the bowl. We sat on the Turkey carpet, and used the seat of the green chair as a table--a strange meal, in strange surroundings; but a better I never had, before or since. There was a physical gratification, a warmth and a comfort to me, in watching the colour flowing gradually back into Constance's face; a singularly beautiful process of nature I thought it. Presently the door of the room opened with a jerk, and a tallish man wearing a silk hat looked in. "H'm!" he said brusquely. "Beg pardon!" And he was gone. I learned afterwards that the room belonged to him, and that he came direct from a conference of newspaper pundits called together at Westminster by the Home Secretary. I do not know where he took refuge, but as for us we went on with our soup and bread till repletion overtook us, as it quickly does after long fasts, and renewed strength brought sighs of contentment. "Wardle," I remember saying to my journalistic friend, with absurd earnestness, "have you anything to smoke?" "I haven't a thing but my pipe," he said. "But wait a moment! There used to be--yes. Look here!" There was a drawer in a side-table near the great writing-table, and one division of it was half-full of cigarettes, the other of Upman's "Torpedoes." "I will repay thee," I murmured irreverently, as I helped myself to one of each, and lit the cigarette, having obtained permission from Constance. It was the first tobacco I had tasted for forty-eight hours, and I was a very regular smoker. I had not known my need till then, a fact which will tell much to smokers. "And now?" said Constance. Her eyelids were drooping heavily. "Now I am going to take you straight out to South Kensington, and you are going to rest."