any more. It was
some miserable comfort to feel, and _know_, that nothing worse could
ever happen!

Why, there was nothing _worse_ left in all the world. By Jove, I was
sure of _that_ much!

And just then a knock sounded.

CHAPTER XXXII

I TOUCH BOTTOM

"Pardon, sir, for not waiting till you came down," the butler was
saying, "but Mr. Billings was just so set on me bringing this to you, I
_had_ to."

He had entered, responding to Jenkins' invitation, bearing in his hand a
gray paper parcel.

"For me?" I questioned, as he laid it on the table, and I eyed it
ominously. Yet it could not be the same I had sent Billings myself--I
could see that--for it was smaller, more compact, and in a different
wrapper. But I was _afraid_ to examine it.

"Yes, sir--he's very bad this morning, sir; the--er--that is, something
last night seems to have excited him."

His eye roved eloquently between Jenkins and myself. He continued
soberly:

"He's locked me and Perkins out of his rooms again, and wouldn't open
the door only wide enough to stick this through. And his
message"--hesitatingly--"he said just tell you you had better get these
pajamas back where they came from just as quickly as you could--you
would _if you were wise_, he said."

"Oh!" I uttered, dazed by this new blow. So it _was_ her pajamas.

But there was more of the message--I could see it in Wilkes' eye.

"Yes, sir," he went on as I gave him a nod. "Mr. Billings
called through the door-crack--and his voice was particularly
shrill--screechy-like--very unnatural, sir--and he said: 'You tell him I
say he'll find it very dangerous to keep them by him a moment; tell him
my advice is to return them _immediately_!'"

Here the butler hesitated an instant and added: "And he said for me to
try to remember three letters I was to mention--said you would
understand."

"Three letters?" I repeated dully.

"Yes, sir, three letters--I did remember 'em, too, because they happened
to be the initials of a young woman I--h'm! Q. E. D., sir."

"Q. E. D.?" I said, puzzled and miserable. "What's Q. E. D.?" And then
an idea startled me.

"Oh I _say_, you mean--er--P. D. Q.--eh, Wilkes?" It sounded like Jack!

But he seemed sure he didn't; insisted on Q. E. D. When he had
withdrawn, I sat there a moment, swallowing hard. By Jove, when a chap
has had the hardest blow of his life, and that, too, from his best
friend, it's devilish hard to come up smiling. I took a d