A hundred questions sprang up in Marriott's mind and rushed to his lips,
chief among which was something like "Who in the world are you?" and
"What in the name of heaven do you come to me for?" But none of these
questions found time to express themselves in words, for almost at once
the caller turned his head a little so that the gas light in the hall
fell upon his features from a new angle. Then in a flash Marriott
recognised him.

"Field! Man alive! Is it you?" he gasped.

The Fourth Year Man was not lacking in intuition, and he perceived at
once that here was a case for delicate treatment. He divined, without
any actual process of thought, that the catastrophe often predicted had
come at last, and that this man's father had turned him out of the
house. They had been at a private school together years before, and
though they had hardly met once since, the news had not failed to reach
him from time to time with considerable detail, for the family lived
near his own and between certain of the sisters there was great
intimacy. Young Field had gone wild later, he remembered hearing about
it all--drink, a woman, opium, or something of the sort--he could not
exactly call to mind.

"Come in," he said at once, his anger vanishing. "There's been something
wrong, I can see. Come in, and tell me all about it and perhaps I can
help--" He hardly knew what to say, and stammered a lot more besides.
The dark side of life, and the horror of it, belonged to a world that
lay remote from his own select little atmosphere of books and dreamings.
But he had a man's heart for all that.