"You have been living here ever since the middle of October, working here, and your own father and mother don't know where you are?"
"Your people are the only ones who know."
Peter eyed him in silence for a minute.
"Why did you shoot me, Jim?" he asked more gently.
"How do I know?" exclaimed Hammond. "I was drinking; I was just about mad with drink. I liked you well enough, Peter,—I didn't want to kill you,—but the devil was in me. It was drink made me act so bad in St. John; it was drink made me desert; it was drink that came near making a murderer of me. That's the truth, Peter—and now I wish you'd go downstairs, for I don't want my father or Vivia to find me here—or to know anything about me till I'm in France."
"Shall I find you here when I come back?" asked Peter.
"I'll come downstairs as soon as they go," said Hammond.
Peter was about to leave the room when he suddenly remembered the errand that had brought him away from the company downstairs. It was a photograph of himself taken at the age of five years. Vivia had heard of it and asked for it; and before either of his parents or Flora had been able to think of a way of stopping him he had started upstairs for it. Now he found it on the top of a shelf of old books and wiped off the dust on his sleeve.
"Vivia wants it," he said, smiling self-consciously.
He found Flora waiting at the head of the stairs for him.