Could I intrude myself (on a private conversation perhaps) as an unannounced and unwelcome visitor?  And could I help it, if the talk found its way to me through the ventilator, along with the air that I breathed?  If our Reverend Fathers think I was to blame, I bow to any reproof which their strict sense of propriety may inflict on me.  In the meantime, I beg to repeat the interesting passages in the conversation, as nearly word for word as I can remember them.

His lordship, as the principal personage in social rank, shall be reported first.  He said:  “More than a week has passed, Romayne, and we have neither seen you nor heard from you.  Why have you neglected us?”

Here, judging by certain sounds that followed, Penrose got up discreetly, and left the room.  Lord Loring went on.

He said to Romayne:  “Now we are alone, I may speak to you more freely.  You and Stella seemed to get on together admirably that evening when you dined with us.  Have you forgotten what you told me of her influence over you?  Or have you altered your opinion—­and is that the reason why you keep away from us?”

Romayne answered:  “My opinion remains unchanged.  All that I said to you of Miss Eyrecourt, I believe as firmly as ever.”

His lordship remonstrated, naturally enough.  “Then why remain away from the good influence?  Why—­if it really can be controlled—­risk another return of that dreadful nervous delusion?”

“I have had another return.”

“Which, as you yourself believe, might have been prevented!  Romayne, you astonish me.”

There was a time of silence, before Romayne answered this.  He was a little mysterious when he did reply.  “You know the old saying, my good friend—­of two evils, choose the least.  I bear my sufferings as one of two evils, and the least of the two.”

Lord Loring appeared to feel the necessity of touching a delicate subject with a light hand.  He said, in his pleasant way:  “Stella isn’t the other evil, I suppose?”

“Most assuredly not.”

“Then what is it?”

Romayne answered, almost passionately:  “My own weakness and selfishness!  Faults which I must resist, or become a mean and heartless man.  For me, the worst of the two evils is there.  I respect and admire Miss Eyrecourt—­I believe her to be a woman in a thousand—­don’t ask me to see her again!  Where is Penrose?  Let us talk of something else.”

Whether this wild way of speaking offended Lord Loring, or only discouraged him, I cannot say.  I heard him take his leave in these words:  “You have disappointed me, Romayne.  We will talk of something else the next time we meet.”  The study door was opened and closed.  Romayne was left by himself.

Solitude was apparently not to his taste just then.  I heard him call to Penrose.  I heard Penrose ask:  “Do you want me?”

Romayne answered:  “God knows I want a friend—­and I have no friend near me but you!  Major Hynd is away, and Lord Loring is offended with me.”