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 difficulty with Conroy; and he returned to his lodgings in an empty despondence.

As he mounted the steps to Mrs. McGahn's door, he saw that someone was watching him through one of the front windows. As he stepped into the hall, he saw Walter Pittsey standing in the doorway of the parlour, waiting for him. He stopped, incredulous.

"Well, Don Quixote," Walter said, with his usual mild amusement, "I hear you've been slaughtering supers."

"Why, where did you come from?" Don cried. "I thought it was Bert! When did you arrive?"

He coughed. "Come in here." He took Don by the elbow and led him into the parlour. It was Miss Morris who rose from a chair beside the window and came to greet him with her slow smile.

Don took her hand in silence, looking from her conspiring eyes to Pittsey's and back again. "What is it?" he asked, beginning to tremble at the expectation of he did not know what.

She said teasingiy: "Didn't I tell you to wait until you heard from me?"

He stared at the promise which her words implied, and her face slowly retreated from him as if he had looked at her through the wrong end of a telescope. He was dizzily aware that the floor and ceiling of the room were working up and down like the top and bottom of a bellows. He clung to her hand. "I think . . . I'd better sit down," he said. "The floor's" Pittsey's arm was around him. He stumbled towards a chair. "The floor's"