"You—and why?"
"That I may save your kind friend from certain perils which I think are about to menace him. Yes, yes, he has been generous to you and I wish to reward him. He must not know—he must never hear my name in the matter, but should there be strangers at Hampstead let me know immediately—write to me if you cannot come here. Do not delay or you may rue it to the end of your days. Write to me, Alban, and I shall know how to help your friend."
He had spoken under a spell of strong excitement, but his message delivered, he fell again to his old quiet manner; and having exchanged a few commonplaces with the astonished lad plainly intimated that he would be alone. Alban, surprised beyond measure, perceived in his turn that no amount of questioning would help him to a better understanding; and so, in a state of perplexity which defied expression, he said "Good night" and went out into the quiet street.
CHAPTER XIV
THERE ARE STRANGERS IN THE CAVES
It was some time after midnight when Alban reached Broad Street Station and discovered that the last train for Hampstead had left. A certain uneasiness as to what his new friends would think of him did not deter him from his sudden determination to turn westward and seek out his old haunts. He had warned Richard Gessner that no house would ever make a prisoner of him, and this quick desire for liberty now burned in his veins as a fever. It would be good, he thought, to sleep under the stars once more and to imagine himself that same Alban Kennedy who had not known whither to look for bread—could it be but five short weeks ago!
The city was very still as he passed through it and, save for a broken-down motor omnibus with a sleepy conductor for its guardian, Cheapside appeared to be almost destitute of traffic. The great buildings, wherein men sought the gold all day, were now given over to watchmen and the rats, as the bodies of the seekers would one day be given over to the earth whence they sprang. Alban depicted a great army of the servants of money asleep in distant homes, and he could not but ask what happiness they carried there, what capacities for rest and true enjoyment.