* * * * *

He had been asleep an hour, perhaps more, when something awakened him,
and he found himself sitting bolt upright in bed, dawn already
whitening his windows.

Somebody was knocking. He swung out of bed, stepped into his
bath-slippers, and, passing swiftly to the door, opened it. Gerald stood
there, fully dressed.

"I'm going to town on the early train," began the boy--"I thought I'd
tell you--"

"Nonsense! Gerald, go back to bed!"

"I can't sleep, Philip--"

"Can't sleep? Oh, that's the trouble, is it? Well, then, sit here and
talk to me." He gave a mighty yawn--"I'm not sleepy, either; I can go
days without it. Here!--here's a comfortable chair to sprawl in. . . .
It's daylight already; doesn't the morning air smell sweet? I've a jug
of milk and some grapes and peaches in my ice-cupboard if you feel
inclined. No? All right; stretch out, sight for a thousand yards, and
fire at will."

Gerald strove to smile; for a while he lay loosely in the arm-chair, his
listless eyes intent on the strange, dim light which fell across the
waste of sea fog. Only the water along the shore's edge remained
visible; all else was a blank wall behind which, stretching to the
horizon, lay the unseen ocean. Already a few restless gulls were on the
wing, sheering inland; and their raucous, treble cries accented the
pallid stillness.

But the dawn was no paler than the boy's face--no more desolate. Trouble
was his, the same old trouble that has dogged the trail of folly since
time began; and Selwyn knew it and waited.

At last the boy broke out: "This is a cowardly trick--this slinking in
to you with all my troubles after what you've done for me--after the
rotten way I've treated you--"

"Look here, my boy!" said Selwyn coolly, crossing one knee over the
other and dropping both hands into the pockets of his pajamas--"I asked
you to come to me, didn't I? Well, then; don't criticise my judgment in
doing it. It isn't likely I'd ask you to do a cowardly thing."

"You don't understand what a wretched scrape I'm in--"

"I don't yet; but you're going to tell me--"

"Philip, I can't--I simply cannot. It's so contemptible--and you warned
me--and I owe you already so much--"

"You owe me a little money," observed Selwyn with a careless smile, "and
you've a lifetime to pay it in. What is the trouble now; do you need
more? I haven't an awful lot, old fellow--worse luck!--but what I have
is at yo