And the taxi-cab driver, being quite at a loss, shot away into the darkness to hide his discomfiture.

The flute-player straightened himself with a manifest effort and turned away.  If he had heard the words, he had not comprehended them.  His wits seemed to be wandering that night, but he would not even seem to beg an alms.

But a hand on his shoulder detained him.  “Monsieur de Montville!” a quiet voice said.

He jerked round, bringing his heels together with instinctive precision.  Again, in the glare of the lamp-post their eyes met.

“I have not—­the pleasure,” he muttered stiffly.

“My name is Mordaunt,” the other told him gravely.  “You will remember me presently, though not probably by name.  Come in out of the rain.  It is impossible to talk here.”

He spoke with a certain insistence.  His hand held the Frenchman’s arm.  It was obvious that he would listen to no refusal.  And the man in rags attempted none.  He went with him meekly, as if bewildered into docility.  His single flash of pride had died out like the final flicker of a match.

With the Englishman’s hand supporting him, he stumbled up a flight of steps that led to the door of one of the houses in the quiet street, waited till the turning of a latch-key opened the door, and again numbly yielded to the steady insistence that drew him within.

He stood on a mat under a glaring electric lamp.  The wet streamed down him in rivulets; he was drenched to the skin.

Mechanically he pulled the cap from his head and tried to still his chattering teeth.  His lips were blue.

“This way,” said the quiet voice.  “Take my arm.”

“But I am so damp, monsieur,” he protested shakily.  “It will make you damp also.”

“What of it?  I daresay I shall survive it if you do.”  Very kindly the voice made answer.  He could not see the speaker plainly, for his brain was in a whirl.  He even wondered in a dull fashion if it were all a dream, and if he would wake in a moment from his uneasy slumber to hear the rain splashing down the gutters and the voice of a constable in his ear bidding him move on.

He went up a flight of stairs, moving almost without his own volition, the Englishman’s arm around him, urging him upwards.

They came to the threshold of a room of which Mordaunt switched on the light at entering, and in a moment more the tottering Frenchman found himself pressed down into a chair.  He covered his face with his hands and sat motionless, trying to still the confusion in his brain.  He was shivering violently from head to foot.

There followed a pause of some duration, during which he must have been alone; then again his unknown friend touched him, patted his shoulder, spoke.

“Here’s a hot drink.  You will feel better when you have had it.  Afterwards you shall go to bed.”

He raised his head and stared about him.  Mordaunt, holding a cup of steaming milk that gave out a strong aroma of brandy, was stooping over him.  There was another man in the room, evidently a servant, engaged in kindling a fire.