Max, who was a great friend of Dudley's, and could take any liberty he
pleased in his precincts, lit the gas and the sitting-room fire, and
installed himself in an arm-chair with a book. He could not read,
however, for he was oppressed by some of Doreen's own fears. He was well
acquainted with all his friend's ways, and he knew that for him to be
away both from his chambers and from the neighborhood of the Courts for
a whole day was most unusual with that particularly steady, plodding
young man. He began to worry himself with the remembrance that Dudley
had not been himself of late, that he had been moody, restless and
unsettled without apparent cause.

Finally, Max worked himself into such a state of anxiety about his
friend that when he at last heard the key turned in the lock of the
outer door, he jumped up excitedly and made a rush for the door.

Before he reached it, however, he heard footsteps in the adjoining
bedroom, the heavy tread of a man stumbling about in the dark, the
overthrowing of some of the furniture.

Surely that could not be Dudley!

Max stood still at the door, listening. He thought it might be a thief
who had got hold of the key of the chambers.

As he stood still, close by the wall, the door which led from the one
room to the other was thrown open from the bedroom, almost touching him
as it fell back; and there staggered into the sitting-room, into the
light thrown by the gas and the fire, a figure which Max could scarcely
recognize as Dudley Horne. His face was the grayish white of the dead;