ng soundlessly to and fro, awaiting the man's exit
with what patience he could muster.

"You can go now, Tawny," the elder Errol drawled at last. "I will ring
when I want you. Now, Boney, what is it? I wish you would sit down."

There was no impatience in the words, but his brows were slightly drawn
as he uttered them,

Nap, turning swiftly, noted the fact. "You are not so well to-night?"

"Sit down," his brother repeated gently. "How is Lady Carfax?"

Nap sat down with some reluctance. He looked as if he would have
preferred to prowl.

"She is still unconscious, and likely to remain so. The doctor thinks
very seriously of her."

"Her husband has been informed?"

"Her husband," said Nap from between his teeth, "has been informed, and
he declines to come to her. That's the sort of brute he is."

Lucas Errol made no comment, and after a moment Nap continued:

"It is just as well perhaps. I hear he is never sober after a day's
sport. And I believe she hates the sight of him if the truth were
told--and small wonder!"

There was unrestrained savagery in the last words. Lucas turned his head
and looked at him thoughtfully.

"You know her rather well?" he said.

"Yes." Nap's eyes, glowing redly, met his with a gleam of defiance.

"You have known her for long?" The question was perfectly quiet, uttered
in the tired voice habitual to this man who had been an invalid for
almost the whole of his manhood.

Yet Nap frowned as he heard it. "I don't know," he said curtly. "I don't
estimate friendships by time."

Lucas said no more, but he continued to look at his brother with
unvarying steadiness till at length, as if goaded thereto, Nap
spoke again.

"We are friends," he said, "no more, no less. You all think me a
blackguard, I know. It's my speciality, isn't it?" He spoke with
exceeding bitterness. "But in this case you are wrong. I repeat--we
are friends."

He said it aggressively; his tone was almost a challenge, but the elder
Errol did not appear to notice.

"I have never thought you a blackguard, Boney," he said quietly.

Nap's thin lips smiled cynically. "You have never said it."

"I have never thought it." There was no contradicting the calm assertion.
It was not the way of the world to contradict Lucas Errol. "And I know
you better than a good many," he said.

Nap stirred restlessly and was silent.

Lucas turned his eyes from him and seemed to fall into a reverie.
Suddenly, however, he roused him