And since the whole attempt had failed, it was hardly worth while to consider whether a little might not be saved from the general wreck. No good would ever come of that half-finished novel. He had intended that it should appear in the autumn; was under contract that it should appear; no matter; it was better to pay forfeit to his publishers than to waste what days were left. He was spent; age was not far off; and paths of wisdom and sadness were the properest for the remainder of the journey.... If only he had chosen the wife, the child the faithful friend at the fireside, and let them follow an _ignis fatuus_ that list!... In the meantime it began to puzzle him exceedingly what he should be so weak, that his room should smell so overpoweringly of decaying vegetable matter, and that his hand, chancing to stray to his face in the darkness, should encounter a beard. "Most extraordinary!" he began to mutter to himself. "Have I been ill? Am I ill now? And if so, why have they left me alone?... Extraordinary!..." He thought he heard a sound from the kitchen or bathroom. He rose a little on his pillow, and listened.... Ah! He was not alone, then! It certainly would have been extraordinary if they had left him ill and alone--Alone? Oh no. He would be looked after. He wouldn't be left, ill, to shift for himself. If everybody else had forsaken him, he could trust Elsie Bengough, the dearest chum he had, for that ... bless her faithful heart! But suddenly a short, stifled, spluttering cry rang sharply out: "_Paul!_" It came from the kitchen. And in the same moment it flashed upon Oleron, he knew not how, that two, three, five, he knew not how many minutes before, another sound, unmarked at the time but suddenly transfixing his attention now, had striven to reach his intelligence. This sound had been the slight touch of metal on metal--just such a sound as Oleron made when he put his key into the lock. "Hallo!... Who's that?" he called sharply from his bed. He had no answer. He called again. "Hallo!... Who's there?... Who is it?" This time he was sure he heard noises, soft and heavy, in the kitchen. "This is a queer thing altogether," he muttered. "By Jove, I'm as weak as a kitten too.... Hallo, there! Somebody called, didn't they?... Elsie! Is that you?..." Then he began to knock with his hand on the wall at the side of his bed. "Elsie!... Elsie!... You called, didn't you?... Please come here, whoever it is!..." There was a sound as of a closing door, and then silence. Oleron began to get rather alarmed. "It may be a nurse," he muttered; "Elsie'd have to get me a nurse, of course. She'd sit with me as long as she could spare the time, brave lass, and she'd get a nurse for the rest.... But it was awfully like her voice.... Elsie, or whoever it is!... I can't make this out at all. I must go and see what's the matter...."