“ Mr. Wilde is wrong,” murmured Constance. Her lips were blanched, but her voice was sweet and calm.

“Let us agree, if you please, that in this one circumstance Mr. Wilde is wrong,” I said.

I climbed the three dilapidated flights of stairs, which I had so often climbed before, and knocked at a small door at the end of the corridor. Mr. Wilde opened the door and I walked in.