"Asleep," answered Theodore, briefly, feeling that words were worse than useless.
"Then could you—could we possibly get him to his room without the knowledge of any one? If we only could."
"We will try," the brief reply breathing sympathy and pity in every tone. "Have you a servant whom you can trust?"
Dora shook her head in distress.
"There isn't a servant up but John, and papa rang for him not five minutes ago."
"Never mind then—I know the driver; he is trustworthy. Be prepared to show us the way to his room, Miss Hastings."
Swift and quiet were their movements. The driver, one of the wisest of his set, seemed to comprehend the situation by instinct, and trod the halls and stairs as though his feet had been shod in velvet. He was a strong man, too, and between them they carried the slight effeminate form with ease and laid him upon the elegant bed in his elegant room, he still sleeping the heavy drunken sleep which Dora had learned to know so well.
She stood now in the hall with compressed lips and one hand pressing the throbbing veins in her forehead, waiting while Theodore turned down and shaded the gas, and arranged the sleeper's head in a more comfortable position on the pillow. He had with a brief low-spoken sentence dismissed his helper the moment they had deposited their burden on the bed. Presently he came out into the hall, and closing the door behind him followed Dora lightly and swiftly down the stairs. Not a word passed between them until he stood with his hand on the night-latch; then he said:
"Can I serve you in any way to-night, Miss Hastings?"
The reply was irrelevant but very earnest: