It was late when he walked softly through the dim corridor upstairs, in which one lamp only was burning low, making a sort of darkness visible. Everybody was asleep, or at least so it appeared from the absolute stillness of the house. He felt as if his step now and then coming upon a plank in the flooring which creaked, must startle the people retired in those silent rooms like the tread of a thief in the night. Nothing could be more unlike a thief than Archie was, stealing along in the dark to give away all he possessed in the world to a man whom he did not by any means love, who was his neighbour only in the broadest sense of the word, one who wanted something which he possessed. He had made out all his generous foolish plans, as to how it could be best done, so that nobody need ever know that he had come to Eddy’s aid, not even a banker’s clerk. He knocked softly at the door from underneath which there was a glimmer of light, the only one in the long corridor where any sign of life was to be seen. His knock was not responded to for the first moment. He heard a little rustle and movement of paper, and then he knocked a second time, and again after a little interval Eddy came and opened the door. “Oh it’s you, Rowland,” he said, admitting him instantly. Eddy had been sitting at a writing table, with a number of papers before him, over which he had tossed a newspaper, the first thing that came handy, when he heard Archie’s knock. There was no reason why he should have covered up his papers so. What he had been lost in contemplation of, was Archie’s cheque, which was stretched out before him in his blotting book, and which he was poring over with no doubt the grateful sensations which a man has when a friend holds out to him, when he is drowning, a helpful hand. He had been looking at it with his head on one side, and a look of earnest and fixed observation, sometimes making a visionary line with his pencil in the air, here and there. Perhaps a little regret about that nought that was wanting might be in his mind. Eddy was very hard pressed. The bit of paper which the money-lender had in his possession, which he held over the unfortunate young man’s head, demanding a ransom as cruel and extravagant as any blood-money, was enough to ruin Eddy for ever and ever. No aid or succour from his friends would enable him to get over it, and he dared not on account of this examine the demand made upon him, or attempt to have it ratified. He must pay it or he himself must sink to the very pit of social annihilation. Eddy was very well known to be a little _mauvais sujet_, as his father had been before him. Still that was a thing which society could ignore: it could even have permitted him to marry an heiress, with a sensation of pleasure in having him so well disposed of; but the bit of paper in the usurer’s hand was a different matter. That was a thing which could not be admitted, and could not be forgotten. At all