CHAPTER XXXI.
A STARTLING DISCOVERY.
When I awoke it was with the dulled senses and aching head which usually follow either a drugged sleep or an unnaturally heavy one. I sat up on the sofa, rubbing my eyes and staring around in blank surprise. Daylight was streaming in through the chinks of the drawn blinds, but the gas was still burning with a dull, sickly light.
The table betrayed all the signs of an all-night orgie. Several packs of cards were lying strewn over the crumpled, ash-scattered cloth. There were half-a-dozen tumblers—one nearly full, another broken into pieces—and several empty soda-water bottles lay on the floor.
But the most ghastly sight of all was Cecil’s face. He sat on a chair drawn up to the table, his chin fallen upon his folded arms, dark rims under his eyes, and without a single vestige of colour in his ashen face. There was no one else in the room.
I sprang to my feet and hurried to his side.
“Cecil! Cecil!” I cried. “What’s the matter, old chap? Wake up, for Heaven’s sake, and tell me what has happened!”
He pulled himself together and struggled to his feet. Then he looked round the room and finally into my anxious face, with an odd little laugh, strained and unnatural.
“I’ve about done it this time,” he said. “By George! Let’s clear out of this before Milly comes down. I shouldn’t like her to know that we’ve been here all night. Poor little girl! She’d never forgive herself for letting us play here at all.”
“Where are the others?” I asked.
“Fothergill has gone back to his hotel and Leonard went with him. I said I’d wake you and we’d follow directly, but I think I must have been dozing.”