somewhat hysteric sense of courage and self-approval. He had been
tempted--he was ready to recognise that the temptation was over, that he
had well-nigh succumbed to it--but he had triumphed! He was a man again.
He had been weighed in the balances and not found wanting. There were
some tears in his eyes compounded of brandy and nerves and affections
and remorses as he hurried into the street. Phil should never be ashamed
of his father. Old Brown, who had trusted him like a brother, should
never learn to shun and hate him. He had to go under--the thing was
inevitable, unescapable, but he would at least go under like a man. His
heart beat to the tune of the 'Conquering Hero,' where it might have
beat to the 'Rogue's March,' but for that friendly nip of brandy and the
all-covering mercies of Heaven.

Quickly as his resolution had been taken, he had fully arranged for the
details of the task which lay before him. With the notes he had thrust
into his pocket a little handful of business papers involving a knotty
and delicate point of business, and he intended that the discussion of
the point they raised should act as the prelude to the disclosure and
the restitution he desired to make. He could not, even in his newfound
heroism, and with whatever hysteric hardihood he was prepared to meet
the stroke of fate, he could not as yet encounter Brown, and lay bare
before him the plot of the melancholy farce he had played an hour ago.
But there was an old friend of his, and an old friend of Brown's into
the bargain, a solicitor, keen as a needle and kindly as sunshine, one
Barter, whose business chambers were in Gable Inn, and who was of all
men the man he could confide in with least shame and best hope of help.
He hailed a cab, and bade the driver drive his fastest. Gable Inn lay
tranquil, the afternoon shadows already settling deeper on the little
quadrangle than on the broad and roaring thoroughfare without. There
was no light in the windows of the rooms in which Messrs. Fellowship,
Freemantle, and Barter had done business and received their clients
fifty years ago, and in which the sole surviving member of the
firm still maintained its old-established reputation for honour and
astuteness.

Bommaney was chilled by the silence and darkness of the rooms, and he
shivered to see the temptation he had conquered looming again before
him. He knocked loudly with a trembling hand, and the noise of iron
on iron went rolling and echoing up