I get back safe in this house to-night. Are you on?"

Merriton's teeth bit into his lips until the blood came in the effort at
repression. He shook Wynne's hands off his shoulders and laughed straight
into the other man's sneering face.

"Well then go--and be damned to you!" he said fiercely. "And blame your
drunken wits if you come to grief. I've done my best to dissuade you. If
you were less drunk I'd square the thing up and fight you. But I'm on,
all right. Fifty pounds that you don't get back here--though I'm decent
enough to hope I'll have to pay it. That satisfy you?"

"All right." Wynne straightened himself, took an unsteady step forward
toward the door, and it was then that they all realized how exceedingly
drunk the man was. He had come to the dinner in a state of partial
intoxication, which merely made him bad-tempered, but now the spirits
that he had partaken of so plentifully was burning itself into his very
brain.

Doctor Bartholomew took a step toward him.

"Dash it all!" he said under his breath and addressing no one in
particular, "he can't go like that. Can't some of us stop him?"

"Try," put in Lester Stark sententiously, having had previous experiences
of Wynne's mood, so Doctor Bartholomew did try, and got cursed for his
pains. Wynne was struggling into his great, picturesque cloak, a sinister
figure of unsteady gait and blood-shot eye. As he went to the hall and
swung open the front door, Merriton made one last effort to stop him.