Slowly the vagabond’s gaze focussed itself upon Mordaunt’s face.  He saw it clearly for the first time and gave a slight start of recognition.

“I have seen you before,” he muttered, frowning uncertainly.  “Where?  Where?”

“Never mind now,” returned the Englishman gently.  “Drink this.  You need it.”

He lifted a shaking hand and dropped it again.  All the strength seemed to have gone out of him.

“Monsieur will pardon my feebleness,” he murmured almost inarticulately.  “I am—­a little—­fatigued.  It is nothing.  It will pass.”

“Drink!” Mordaunt said insistently.

He held the rim of the cup against the trembling lips, and perforce the Frenchman drank, at first slowly, then with avidity, till at last he clasped the cup in both his quivering hands and drained it.

His eyes sought Mordaunt’s apologetically as he gave it back.  The apathy had gone out of them.  They looked out of his pinched face with brightening intelligence.  His lips were no longer blue.

“Ah!” he said, with a deep breath.  “But how it was good, monsieur!”

He glanced downwards, discovered himself to be sitting in a chintz-covered chair, and blundered hastily to his feet.

“Tenez!” he exclaimed almost incoherently.  “But how I forget!  See, I have—­I have—­”

He groped out before him suddenly, words failing him, and only Mordaunt’s promptitude spared him a headlong fall.

“Bit light-headed, sir?” suggested the servant, glancing round with an inscrutable countenance.

“No, he’ll be all right.  Go and turn on the hot water,” said Mordaunt.

To the Frenchman as the man departed he spoke as to an equal.  “Monsieur de Montville, I am offering you the hospitality of a friend, and I hope you will accept it.  In the morning if you are well enough we will talk things over.  But to-night you are not fit for anything beyond a hot bath and bed.”

The Frenchman nodded.  Certainly his senses were returning to him.  His eyes were growing brighter every instant.  “It is true,” he said.  “I was ill.  But your—­so great—­kindness has revived me.  I will not, then, trespass upon you longer, except to render to you a thousand thanks.  I am well now.  I will go.”

“No,” Mordaunt said gently.  “You will stay here till morning.  You are not well.  You are feverish.  And the sooner you get to bed the better.  Come!  We are not strangers.  Need we behave as if we were?”

Again de Montville looked at him doubtfully.  “I wish that I could recall—­” he said.

“You will presently,” Mordaunt assured him.  “In the meantime, it really doesn’t matter, and it is not the time for explanations.  I am very glad to have met you.  You surely will not refuse to be my guest for a few hours.”

He spoke with the utmost kindness, but also with inflexible determination.  The Frenchman still looked dubious, but quite obviously he did not feel equal to a battle of wills with his resolute host.  He uttered a sigh and said no more.