"Anything I can do for you before I go down?" he asked.
"Nothing, thank you," was the answer. "I shall stay here all day, Mike. I don't want to show myself in town. The news of my expulsion from the club will be known everywhere. I don't want to look in the faces of my old friends. Some of them have tried to save me. This will be the last straw. They will give me up now—yes, they will be bound to."
"You will be all right by to-morrow, sir," Michael said, huskily. "Lie down and sleep. You need it. You are shaking all over."
When the servant had left the room, closing the door behind him, Charles began to walk to and fro again. Presently he paused before the old mahogany bureau and stood hesitating for a moment. "I must—I must," he said. And opening a drawer, he took out a flask of whisky and, filling a glass, he drank. Then holding the flask between him and the light, he muttered, "Oh, you yellow demon of hell, see what you have done for one spineless creature!"
Restoring the flask to the drawer, he sat down in an easy-chair, put his hands over his face and remained still for a long time.
CHAPTER III
He threw himself on his bed. He was lying with his dull stare on the white ceiling when he heard the voices of his sister-in-law and her child in the hall below. The front door opened. They were going out—out into the open air with free consciences, he told himself, with a pang of fresh pain. He stifled a groan with the end of a pillow into which he had turned his face. Then he sat up to listen. It was a step on the stair—a step he had known from childhood. It was that of his brother William.
"He is coming! He is coming up here," Charles muttered, aghast. "Well, it is his right. He waited till the others went out so that he can rave and storm to his heart's content. Yes, he is coming. He has heard about the club, and all the rest. This time he will kick me out. He has stood me long enough, in God's name."
Charles sat erect and adjusted his dressing-gown with nervous hands. The step was now near. The top of the flight of stairs was almost reached. Charles stood up as a gentle rap was sounded on the door.