But nobody had knocked, the band of raw red gold was stationary that barred the dusk, it was a bed that held him, not a berth, the spacious sleeping quarters of a pampered landlubber were his instead of cramped and bare accomodations aboard an ocean-going boat; and he was quickening to apprehensions of a plight more exigent even than that which Liane had come to tell him of upon that other nightfall, in the Bahamas, weeks ago; by courtesy a guest in the town-house of a new-found ally, in fact no better than a prisoner in the stronghold of his most embittered enemy . . .
Fagged though he had been all through that parley of the small hours, Lanyard had likewise been far too thoroughly alive to its vital bearing upon the issue of whether or not this life of his were worth the struggle, to have slighted any innuendo in Morphew's attitude, however trivial in seeming or elusive. And now recalling, weighing and minutely searching every spoken word and unsaid implication, he perceived no reason for reconsidering his verdict on their consequence, that Morphew's proposal of an alliance had been as treacherous as his own complaisance toward it. . . . A memory the cause of corroding chagrin, to him who had never before met offer of oppression with less than flat defiance, to whom the bare thought of compromise with an overbearing and corrupt antagonist was one to sicken over. He had sour comfort of the saying that it's fair to fight the devil with fire, he would liever have known himself surely the poor thing they pictured him, uncontrollably subject to criminal lapses, than to remember he had been reduced to trafficing with cattle such as Morphew--and on terms of Morphew's choice!
Yet it had been that or worse--a knife in his back, very likely, before he could find out the truth for himself about those latterday prowlings of the Lone Wolf that enemy and friend alike attributed to Michael Lanyard, that the friendliest guesses ascribed to the cropping out of ingrained criminal proclivities which the best will in the world might neither eradicate nor hope to hold in check.
God knew it might be true! and if it were, then it was time indeed to let Society rid itself of such a menace. But first all doubts must be resolved . . .