Douglas shook his head.

"You must please excuse me, Speedwell," he said. "It's very kind of
you, but to tell you the truth, there are certain painful incidents in
connection with my life before I came to London which I am anxious to
forget. I do not choose to have a past at all."

Speedwell shrugged his shoulders and lit a cigarette. He was none too
well pleased.

"You can't expect," he remarked, "to become famous and remain at the
same time unknown. There is a great and growing weakness on the part of
the public to-day for personalities. I suppose it is the spread of
American methods in journalism which is responsible for it. Some day
your chroniclers will help themselves to your past, whether you will or
not."

Douglas rose up with an uneasy laugh.

"It will be an evil day for them," he said; "perhaps for me. But at
least I will not anticipate it."

He wandered restlessly from room to room of the club, returning the
greetings of his acquaintances with a certain vagueness, lingering
nowhere for more than a moment or two. Finally, he took his hat from
the rack and walked out into the street. Fronting him was the Thames.
He leaned against the iron railing and looked out across the dusty,
sun-baked gardens to where the river flowed down between the bridges.
Something of the despair, which had so nearly broken his heart a short