Lackaday shrugged his shoulders. That part of the matter scarcely interested him. He was concerned mainly with the sting of the viper Bakkus, whom he had nourished in his bosom. "But, my dear fellow," said I at last, after a tiring march up and down the hot terrace, "you don't seem to realize that Bakkus has solved all your difficulties, _ambulando_, by walking off, or motoring off, with your great responsibility." "You mean," said he, coming to a halt, "that this has removed the reason for my remaining on the stage?" "It seems so," said I. He frowned. "I wish it could have happened differently. No man can bear to be tricked and fooled and made a mock of." "But it does give you your freedom," said I. He thrust his hands into his trousers pockets. "I suppose it does," he admitted savagely. "But there's a price for everything. Even freedom can be purchased too highly." He strode on. I had to accompany him, perspiringly. It was a very hot day. We talked and talked; came back to the startling event. We had to believe it, because it was incredible, as Tertullian cheerily remarked of ecclesiastical dogma. But short of the Archbishop of Canterbury eloping with the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbour nothing could seem less possible. If Bakkus had nurtured nefarious designs, Good Heavens! he could have executed them years before. Well, perhaps not. When one hasn't a penny in one's pocket even the most cynical pauses ere he proposes romantic flight with a lady equally penniless. But since April, Bakkus had been battening on the good Archdeacon, his brother's substantial allowance. Why had he tarried? "His diabolical cunning lay in wait for a weak moment," growled Lackaday. All through this discussion, I came up against a paradox of human nature. Although it was obvious that the unprincipled Bakkus had rendered my good friend the service of ridding him of the responsibility of a woman whom he had ceased to love, if ever he had loved her at all, a woman, who, for all her loyal devotion through loveless years, had stood implacably between him and the realization of his dreams, yet he rampaged against his benefactor, as though he had struck a fatal blow at the roots of his honour and his happiness. "But after all, man, can't you see," he cried in protest at my worldly and sophistical arguments, "that I've lost one of the most precious things in the world? My implicit faith in a fellow-man. I gave Bakkus a brother's trust. He has betrayed it. Where am I? His thousand faults have been familiar to me for years. I discounted them for the good in him. I thought I had grasped it." He clenched his delicate hand in a passionate gesture. "But now"--he opened it--"nothing. I'm at sea. How can I know that you, whom I have trusted more than any other man with my heart's secrets------?" The _concierge_ with a dusty chauffeur in tow providentially cut short this embarrassing apostrophe. "Monsieur le Capitaine Hylton?" asked the chauffeur. "_C'est moi_."