Raine walked about fifty yards. He had heard the fall. At first it was a grim satisfaction to let him lie there--all night if need were. But then it struck him with unpleasant suddenness that Hockmaster was carrying about his person an immense sum of money in notes and gold. To leave him to the risk of being robbed and perhaps knocked on the head was impossible. He conquered his repugnance and turned, back.
“Eh? All right. I think I'll go to shleep.”
Raine lifted him to his feet, shook him to a degree of soberness, and with one arm around him, marched again homewards.
He loathed the man. To be condemned to hug him close to his person set jarring every nerve of physical repulsion. Raine did not handle him tenderly in that moonlight walk. Whilst sitting on the bench, the American had been coherent in his speech, but his fall and resignation to slumber on the pavement had relaxed the tension of his mind, and he grew maudlin and inarticulate. Now and then he remonstrated with his protector for hurrying him along so fast. In fact, Raine, in his passionate desire to shake himself free of the incubus, was unconsciously exerting his great strength almost to carry him bodily.
In the middle of the bridge, Hockmaster laughed softly to himself.
“To think I should see her again. Dear little Kitty.”
A horrible wave of disgust swept through Raine. He gripped the man viciously.
“Damn you! If you mention her name again, I'll pitch you into the lake.”
“That would be a pity,” murmured the American in a panting murmur. “I can't swim.”
Raine increased his pace, so that speech became for the American a physical impossibility. In the midst of his disgust came the memory of the last time he had come homewards across that bridge. Then, too, he had hurried blindly, anxious to reach the pension. The cynical irony of the parallel smote him. A clock struck two as they reached the corner of the street. Hockmaster was limply happy, comfortably breathless. Raine propped him against the wall as he waited for the _concierge_ to open to his ring. The door was soon swung open, and Raine dragged the American up the dark staircase. When they reached the latter's bedroom, he flung him in unceremoniously and left him to himself.