In the midst of his pondering, Roddick stamped across the hall and into the parlour.
"So you're here," he began, with more than his usual gruffness. But he stopped at sight of his friend's face. "Old man, what has happened to you? You look like a corpse, and your clothes are dripping wet!"
"I came to talk things over with you, and found Miss Laverack here instead. She has done me a world of good," said Griff, simply.
"She ought never to have been out of bed at this time. Janet, off you go. Lomax and I will make an all-night sitting of it, and thrash our troubles out together."
She came and gave Griff her hand, smiling at him with royal friendliness.
"Good night," she whispered. "Try to make the best of it." Then, turning before she had got half across the room, "Leo, can't you give your friend a change? I ought to have thought of it sooner. He will catch his death of cold."
"I won't bother. I'm used to getting wet through."
"Yes, you will bother," put in Roddick. "Upstairs you come, and put dry things on at once. Janet, can you wait down here a little? We shan't be long."
When at last they were alone together, Roddick drew Griff on to talk of his troubles, and afterwards—just as Janet had done, but with less of self in his motive—he tried to beguile him with details of his own sufferings.
"This place goes by the name of Wynyates—'Gates of the Wind,' it means, they tell me; and, God, I can well believe it! They couldn't have hit on a better name. Half a mile north lives a woman I go out of my way to take care of, lest she should give me my liberty; five miles to the other side Janet lives. A cold blast and a warm wind screech and whimper, day and night, round Wynyates. They seem to blow clean through me, Lomax; but I daren't evade them. It gets on the nerves in time," he finished, tranquilly.