By eleven they were well down-town, he was not quite certain where. They stayed but little time in any one place. It seemed as if they had been on this endless journey for years. Now and then he saw a man he knew. In one place he wakened, with a shock of remembrance, to the fact that he had been there before: there, and at the place opposite, too. How little it had changed! It was before the five years.... They were at a corner table, he with his back to the room, the woman facing it. On a platform opposite a young fellow sat before a piano, striking desultory chords. Presently he began to sing, in a sweet, piercing tenor: "_Oh, promise me that some day you and I_----" There was a moved silence through the room; his voice had a quality that reached for the heart: "_Those first sweet violets of early spring_----" Dillon glanced at the woman; her large, dark eyes were brimmed with tears. A great pity surged over him: he would have given anything he owned to be able to offer her her life to live again. Tenderly, as over a dusty, broken bird, he laid his hand over her clasped ones on the table. They sat in awed silence; the song swelled on. He did not hear the door open behind him, nor turn as a new party of four entered quietly. Directly behind his chair a man's voice spoke softly. "This is a fair sample. Not very bad, you think? But every man in this room is a confirmed opium-eater, and the women----" The two at the table hardly heard. "Oh, the women!" said a woman's voice in a rough whisper. "I cannot bear to think----" "Oh, it isn't the women, Aunty! You sha'n't say that--they are heart-breaking. It's the men, the men I bl----" Swiftly, hopelessly, as the steel turns to the magnet, Dillon turned and faced Helena Huntington. As her eyes met his all the rose colour in her soft cheeks seemed to sweep into his and burn dully there, leaving her whiter than bone. For one fiery second her eyes rested on the table, the half-emptied glasses, the clasped hands of the pair, the tear-stained cheeks of the handsome girl. For one breath two groups of stone confronted each other. Then, with no sign of recognition, she swept from her seat, her hand on the rector's arm, her aunt and an older man behind them. Her aunt looked at Dillon as if he were the chair he sat in. The door swung behind them. "_No life so perfect as a life with thee, Oh, promise me; oh, promise me!_" the tenor shrilled. Lawrence burst into jangling laughter. "The evening is over," he said, still red and shaking. "Allow me to escort you home." He never remembered the time between this speech and the moment when she asked him to step in for a while, and he laughed in her face. Then there was another time, and he was at his rooms at the club. But that was early morning. He was lame and his shoes hurt his feet--he must have walked a great deal. At eight o'clock Stebbins dashed into the room.