They returned to the room they had come from, and, finding it heated, opened a window. Having lighted their cigars, they leaned out of this window, smoking, and looking down at the moonlight, as it shone into the court below.

“No enlightenment,” resumed Eugene, after certain minutes of silence. “I feel sincerely apologetic, my dear Mortimer, but nothing comes.”

“If nothing comes,” returned Mortimer, “nothing can come from it. So I shall hope that this may hold good throughout, and that there may be nothing on foot. Nothing injurious to you, Eugene, or⁠—”

Eugene stayed him for a moment with his hand on his arm, while he took a piece of earth from an old flowerpot on the windowsill and dexterously shot it at a little point of light opposite; having done which to his satisfaction, he said, “Or?”

“Or injurious to anyone else.”