long and well pointed. His face bore marks of illness and care;
there were deep lines down the angle of the nostril that spoke of
alternate savage outbreak and repression, and gave his smile a
sardonic rigidity. His dark eyes, that shone with the exaltation
of fever, fixed Paul's on entering, and with the tyranny of an
invalid never left them.

"Well, Hathaway?"

With the sound of that voice Paul felt the years slip away, and he
was again a boy, looking up admiringly to the strong man, who now
lay helpless before him. He had entered the room with a faint
sense of sympathizing superiority and a consciousness of having had
experience in controlling men. But all this fled before Colonel
Pendleton's authoritative voice; even its broken tones carried the
old dominant spirit of the man, and Paul found himself admiring a
quality in his old acquaintance that he missed in his newer
friends.

"I haven't seen you for eight years, Hathaway. Come here and let
me look at you."

Paul approached the bedside with boyish obedience. Pendleton took
his hand and gazed at him critically.

"I should have recognized you, sir, for all your moustache and your
inches. The last time I saw you was in Jack Hammersley's office.
Well, Jack's dead, and here I am, little better, I reckon. You
remember Hammersley's house?"