But alcohol plays strange tricks. It affects manners and memories. It affects, too, the imagination. Annandale was drunk. The Yellow Fay that lurks in liquor awoke in him the manger dog. He told himself that he was being robbed. And of what? The wife of his bosom! And by whom? His nearest friend! The outrage and the villainy of that loomed, or rather, the Yellow Fay aiding, seemed to loom so monstrously, that, beside it, the disasters of the Street dwindled into nothing, lost in the sense of this wrong. It was damnable, he decided. Putting a hand in a pocket his fingers encountered a string of pearls. It was not that which he was seeking. Besides, he had forgotten them. But finding them there it occurred to him that he ought to restore them at once. Circling the park he entered Irving Place and rang at Sylvia's door. There, instead of the usual if brief delay, the door opened at once. Orr was coming out. Beyond in the hall Sylvia stood. Orr looked at Annandale, wondering what the dickens he was after. But Annandale brushed by. Orr passed on. Annandale entered the hall. As the door closed the light revealed to Sylvia what Orr in the semi-obscurity of the stoop had not observed and which, had he observed, would, in view of an anterior episode, have induced his return. But Sylvia saw. In face and manner his excitement was obvious. Mindful of that episode she feared that he was again in his cups. Yet immediately, though for a moment, a question which he asked reassured her. She understood, or thought she did, why he had come. "Did you know that you had lost your pearls?" Instinctively the girl's hand went to her throat. "Here they are. They were found somewhere. In the hall, I think." "Thank you, Arthur. This is very good of you. But tomorrow would have done." She did not ask him in and this omission he did not appear to notice. He looked about the hall and then at the girl. At the look her fear returned. "Did you know about Fanny and Loftus?" he suddenly asked. "They're going to elope." As he spoke he leaned back heavily against the door. "I shall kill him," he added thickly. Sylvia wrung her hands. "Oh, Arthur, you have been drinking again. You promised that you never would." "I shall kill him," Annandale stubbornly repeated. "Oh, don't say such things," the girl pleaded. "Don't say them. Go home." Annandale turned sullenly, opened the door and looking back, muttered, "I have no home." Closing the door after him he started down the steps. They were few and wide, easy of descent. But they had become unaccountably steep. He caught at a rail. It steadied him. He stood there a moment. Then, a bit uncertainly, he zigzagged on. CHAPTER V EXIT FANNY "Murder!" On the morrow, through the thick streets newsboys were shouting the word engagingly, as though it were something nice. For further temptation they bawled, "In Gramercy Park!"