“Field!  Man alive!  Is it you?” he gasped.

The Fourth Year Man was not lacking in intuition, and he perceived at once that here was a case for delicate treatment.  He divined, without any actual process of thought, that the catastrophe often predicted had come at last, and that this man’s father had turned him out of the house.  They had been at a private school together years before, and though they had hardly met once since, the news had not failed to reach him from time to time with considerable detail, for the family lived near his own and between certain of the sisters there was great intimacy.  Young Field had gone wild later, he remembered hearing about it all—­drink, a woman, opium, or something of the sort—­he could not exactly call to mind.

“Come in,” he said at once, his anger vanishing.  “There’s been something wrong, I can see.  Come in, and tell me all about it and perhaps I can help—­” He hardly knew what to say, and stammered a lot more besides.  The dark side of life, and the horror of it, belonged to a world that lay remote from his own select little atmosphere of books and dreamings.  But he had a man’s heart for all that.

He led the way across the hall, shutting the front door carefully behind him, and noticed as he did so that the other, though certainly sober, was unsteady on his legs, and evidently much exhausted.  Marriott might not be able to pass his examinations, but he at least knew the symptoms of starvation—­acute starvation, unless he was much mistaken—­when they stared him in the face.

“Come along,” he said cheerfully, and with genuine sympathy in his voice.  “I’m glad to see you.  I was going to have a bite of something to eat, and you’re just in time to join me.”

The other made no audible reply, and shuffled so feebly with his feet that Marriott took his arm by way of support.  He noticed for the first time that the clothes hung on him with pitiful looseness.  The broad frame was literally hardly more than a frame.  He was as thin as a skeleton.  But, as he touched him, the sensation of faintness and dread returned.  It only lasted a moment, and then passed off, and he ascribed it not unnaturally to the distress and shock of seeing a former friend in such a pitiful plight.

“Better let me guide you.  It’s shamefully dark—­this hall.  I’m always complaining,” he said lightly, recognising by the weight upon his arm that the guidance was sorely needed, “but the old cat never does anything except promise.”  He led him to the sofa, wondering all the time where he had come from and how he had found out the address.  It must be at least seven years since those days at the private school when they used to be such close friends.

“Now, if you’ll forgive me for a minute,” he said, “I’ll get supper ready—­such as it is.  And don’t bother to talk.  Just take it easy on the sofa.  I see you’re dead tired.  You can tell me about it afterwards, and we’ll make plans.”