Then there were more articulate words. “Nothing can make him not to be himself! And if he’s himself, and I’m myself , ’twould be like my life hugging my life to do it!”

He fell into a silence then; and lifting one of his arms from where it sprawled upon the table, he wiped the saliva from his mouth with the back of his hand.

“I’ll find out everything in a moment,” Wolf thought. “All I’ve got to do is to keep my brain clear.”

The windows had become so dark with rain that the room was in twilight. The upper portion of his companion’s face was almost invisible. Over the lower part of it, however, the smouldering fire threw a wavering illumination. It was this obscuring of the man’s eyes in the darkened room that made it a surprise to Wolf when, after a long pause, a voice came from him that was pitched in a completely different key⁠—that was, indeed, crafty and foxy in its sobriety!