He couldn't explain Underwood's influence over him. He had done with him what he chose. He wondered why he had been so weak, why he had not tried to resist. The truth was Underwood exercised a strange, subtle power over him. He had the power to make him do everything he wanted him to do, no matter how foolish or unreasonable the request. Every one at college used to talk about it. One night Underwood invited all his classmates to his rooms and made him cut up all kinds of capers. He at first refused, point blank--but Underwood got up and, standing directly in front of him, gazed steadily into his eyes. Again he commanded him to do these ridiculous, degrading things. Howard felt himself weakening. He was suddenly seized with the feeling that he must obey. Amid roars of laughter he recited the entire alphabet standing on one leg, he crowed like a rooster, he hopped like a toad, and he crawled abjectly on his belly like a snake. One of the fellows told him afterward that he had been hypnotized. He had laughed at it then as a good joke, but now he came to think of it, perhaps it was true. Possibly he was a subject. Anyway he was glad to be rid of Underwood and his uncanny influence. The train stopped with a jerk at his station and Howard rode down in the elevator to the street Crossing Eighth Avenue, he was going straight home when suddenly he halted. The glitter and tempting array of bottles in a corner saloon window tempted him. He suddenly felt that if there was one thing he needed in the world above all others it was another drink. True, he had had more than enough already. But that was Coxe's fault. He had invited him and made him drink. There couldn't be any harm in taking another. He might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. By the time he emerged from the saloon his speech was thick and his step uncertain. A few minutes later he was painfully climbing up the rickety stairs of a cheap-looking flat house. As he reached the top floor a cheerful voice called out: "Is that you, Howard, dear?" CHAPTER II. A young woman hurried out of one of the apartments to greet Howard. She was a vivacious brunette of medium height, intelligent looking, with good features and fine teeth. It was not a doll face, but the face of a woman who had experienced early the hard knocks of the world, yet in whom adversity had not succeeded in wholly subduing a naturally buoyant, amiable disposition. There was determination in the lines above her mouth. It was a face full of character, the face of a woman who by sheer dint of dogged perseverance might accomplish any task she cared to set herself. A smile of welcome gleamed in her eyes as she inquired eagerly: "Well, dear, anything doing?" Howard shook his head for all response and a look of disappointment crossed the young wife's face.