us's Balliol library;
chrome-lithographic reproductions of Saints and Madonnas by Old Masters
hung above. The Philistine School of Art was represented by a Zoological
hearthrug; three Windsor chairs offered accommodation to the visitor; a
table of the kitchen pattern was covered by a square of green baize; and a
slippery hair-cloth sofa, with a knobbly bolster and a patchwork cushion,
supported the long, thin, black clad figure of the Reverend Julius
Fraithorn, who was lying down.

"I have come," said Saxham, standing grimly over the prone figure, a
single stride having taken him to the side of the sofa, "to prescribe for
a man whose nerves are playing him tricks. I have torn up your letter--the
epistle in which you ask me to afford you an opportunity of making an
avowal which will prove to what depths of infamy a man may descend at the
bidding of his lower nature. Lower nature! If I am any judge of a man's
physical condition, a lower nature is what you want!" He threw down his
hat and stick upon the green-baize-covered table, took one of the Windsor
chairs, and crashed it down beside the sofa, and planted his hulking big
body on it, and reached out and captured the thin wrist of his victim, who
mustered breath to stammer:

"There is nothing whatever the matter with my health. I am well--that is,
bodily." He got up from the sofa, and crossed to the Zoological hearthrug,
and poked the smoky little fire burning in the narrow grate, for the May
day was wet and chilly. "I shall be better, mentally," he said, with an
effort, looking over his shoulder towards Saxham, "when you have heard
what I have to tell." He rose up, and turned round, his thin face flaming.
"Mind, I'm not to be gagged by your not wanting to," for Saxham had
impatiently waved his hand. "Hear you shall, and must!"

He ground his boot-heel into the orange-yellow lion that couched on a
field of aniline green hearthrug, and drove his hands down deep into his
pockets, and the painful scarlet surged over the rim of his Roman collar
and dyed his thin, sensitive, beautiful face and high, white forehead to
the roots of his dark, curling hair.

"Perhaps you may recall an oath I swore at your instigation one day in
your room at the Hospital at Gueldersdorp?"

"Yes--no! What does it matter?" said Saxham thickly, with his angry,
brooding eyes upon the floor.

"It matters," said Julius doggedly, "in the present case. I need hardly
tell you that I have kept that oa