n the door.

The playing stopped. "Come in," said a cheery voice; but it gave me
no cheerfulness. Instead of that, it sent all the comfort of my
supper clean out of me, as I opened the door and saw _him_ sitting
there.

There he was, the man who had saved my neck that day, and whom most I
hated in the world, sitting before a snug fire, with his flute on his
knee, a glass of port wine at his elbow, and looking so comfortable,
with that knowing light in his grey eyes, that I could have killed
him where he sat.

"Oh, it's you, is it?" he said, just the very least bit surprised and
no more. "Come in."

I stood in the doorway hesitating.

"Don't stay letting in that monstrous draught, man; but sit down.
You'll find the bottle on the table and a glass on the shelf."

I poured out a glassful and drank it off. The stuff was rare (I can
remember its trick on the tongue to this day), but somehow it did not
drive the cold out of my heart. I took another glass, and sat
sipping it and staring from the fire to my companion.

He had taken up the flute again, and was blowing a few deep notes out
of it, thoughtfully enough. He was a small, squarely-built man, with
a sharp ruddy face like a frozen pippin, heavy grey eyebrows, and a
mouth like a trap when it was not pursed up for that everlasting
flute. As he sat there with his wig off, the crown of his bald head
was fringed with an obstinate-looking patch of hair, the colour of a
badger's. My amazement at finding him here at this hour, and alone,
was lost in my hatred of the man as I saw the depths of complacent
knowledge in his face. I felt that I must kill him sooner or later,
and the sooner the better.

Presently he laid down his flute again and spoke:--

"I scarcely expected you."

I grunted something in answer.

"But I might have known something was up, if I'd only paid attention
to my flute. It and I are not in harmony to-night. It doesn't like
the secrets I've been blowing into it; it has heard a lot of queer
things in its time, but it's an innocent-minded flute for all that,
and I'm afraid that what I've told it to-night is a point beyond what
it's prepared to go."

"I take it, it knows a damned deal too much," growled I.

He looked at me sharply for an instant, rose, whistled a bar or two
of "Like Hermit Poor," reached down a couple of clay pipes from the
shelf, filled one for himself, and gravely handed the other with the
tobacco to me.

"Beyond w