“Keep your filthy money—­wrung from women and boys over card-tables.  Even if some blind, wormlike process of instinct stirred the shame in you, and you ventured to offer belated aid to the woman who bears your name, I forbid it—­I do not permit you the privilege.  Except that she retains your name—­and the moment you attempt to rob her of that I shall destroy you!—­except for that, you have no further relations with her—­nothing to do or undo; no voice as to the disposal of what remains of her; no power, no will, no influence in her fate. I supplant you; I take my own again; I reassume a responsibility temporarily taken from me.  And now, I think, you understand!”

He gave him one level and deadly stare; then his pallid features relaxed, he slowly walked past Ruthven, grave, preoccupied; unlocked the door, and passed out.

* * * * *

His lodgings were not imposing in their furnishings or dimensions—­a very small bedroom in the neighbourhood of Sixth Avenue and Washington Square—­but the heavy and increasing drain on his resources permitted nothing better now; and what with settling Gerald’s complications and providing two nurses and a private suite at Clifton for Alixe Ruthven, he had been obliged to sell a number of securities, which reduced his income to a figure too absurd to worry over.

However, the Government had at last signified its intention of testing his invention—­Chaosite—­and there was that chance for better things in prospect.  Also, in time, Gerald would probably be able to return something of the loans made.  But these things did not alleviate present stringent conditions, nor were they likely to for a long while; and Selwyn, tired and perplexed, mounted the stairs of his lodging-house and laid his overcoat on the iron bed, and, divesting himself of the garments of ceremony as a matter of economy, pulled on an old tweed shooting-jacket and trousers.

Then, lighting his pipe—­cigars being now on the expensive and forbidden list—­he drew a chair to his table and sat down, resting his worn face between both hands.  Truly the world was not going very well with him in these days.

For some time, now, it had been his custom to face his difficulties here in the silence of his little bedroom, seated alone at his table, pipe gripped between his firm teeth, his strong hands framing his face.  Here he would sit for hours, the long day ended, staring steadily at the blank wall, the gas-jet flickering overhead; and here, slowly, painfully, with doubt and hesitation, out of the moral confusion in his weary mind he evolved the theory of personal responsibility.

With narrowing eyes, from which slowly doubt faded, he gazed at duty with all the calm courage of his race, not at first recognising it as duty in its new and dreadful guise.