"I do not know whether I should be doing right in giving you Miss Grant's address," said Mr. Clendon at last. "But I will admit that I am tempted to do so."
"If you would——" began Derrick; but Mr. Clendon stopped him with an upraised hand.
"You say that you are a friend of Miss Grant's—I seem to remember you, though I have only seen you at a distance, and then indistinctly. Are you not the young man who lived in the flat opposite hers?"
Derrick's face grew red. "I am, sir," he said. "It was while I was living there that Miss Grant did me the service of which I speak. I was in great trouble; in about as bad a trouble as a man could be; in fact, I had come to a point beyond which it seemed to me—I was a fool!—that it was impossible to carry on. At that moment of folly and madness, Miss Grant came to my aid, and saved me—you will think me extravagant if I say—from death; but that's the real fact. I did not know her name until you told me just now; I saw her for only a few minutes; those few minutes, and her angelic goodness, changed the whole current of my life. Isn't it only natural that I should want to see her, to tell her——"
He broke off abruptly and turned away to the window. As the piercing eyes followed him, they grew troubled, the thin lips quivered and the wasted hand that lay on the table closed and unclosed spasmodically.
"Will you tell me your name?" asked the low voice. "Mine is Clendon."
Derrick hesitated for a moment; then he remembered Donna Elvira's injunction that he should bear his assumed name while in London.
"Sydney Green, sir."
"And you have come from abroad?" said Mr. Clendon. "I can see that by your tanned face, by the character of your attire."
"From South America," said Derrick. "I am here on a mission, on business for an employer. I am afraid I cannot tell you any more; I've only just arrived and am staying at the Imperial in Western Square. If you think I have told you sufficient, if you can trust me, I shall be very grateful if you will give me Miss Grant's address. I wish I could convince you that I am asking it from no unworthy motive."