hours yet, and after a few moments' hesitation he decided to go and call on his old friend, Godfrey Raleigh, with whom h

seem to take any effect, and at sixty-five his body was as vigorous and his brain as active and clear as they had been at thirty-five. He had married rathe

would take a brilliant degree, he would enter the Diplomatic Service under the best of auspices, and when Enid had completed her education with a couple of

out to India together, Sir Godfrey with a judicial appointment, and Sir Arthur as Political Agent to one of the minor Independent States, both of them juniors with many things to

earnt to know each other. They had gone home together on the same ship to marry the girls who had been waiting for them since their troths had been plighted during their university days. They had come back with their brides on the same ship to India;

vents of the last twelve hours or so, Sir Arthur felt that it would not be either loyal to his old friend, or just to him and his

him to come and smoke a pipe in his den, and there Sir Arthur, taking up the thread where it had been dropped years

is engaged to marry your girl. It is quite plain, I am sorry to say, that this alcoholic taint is in him, and as I have told you this Miss Carol Vane

s a very difficult problem indeed for us to decide

ld rather say, we might adopt the strictly scientific view of the matter and say that, since the unfortunate woman who was once your wife has apparently transmitted

e purely human point of view, and here, I speak again as an old judge. When you married your wife you had no notion that she had inherited this taint

fact, die out altogether. On the other hand, what might have been only a vice in the grandfather or the father may

on and my daughter will have more accurate instincts and keener intuiti

tory this afternoon, and she will tell Enid when she gets back from Paris. Then I think the best that we can do will be to leave them to find a solution of the problem between th

nd hopelessly false-judgment which Si

gment, in fact, which might have been expected from a man of such vast and varied experience. Both of them had

m to see into the future, nor yet to solve those impossibly intricate problems of human passion, of human strength and weakness, which, in defiance of all laws human

one under the circumstances was to follow his advice. When he got back to his house in

. Vane

gh he had never drunk of the liquor of fire

able was already laid in what was called the breakfast-room, that is to say a room looking

very much ashamed of himself, indeed, for what had happened afterwards. But as yet, he had no suspicion of the terrible secret which in the almost immediate future was to decide his destiny in life. The dreadful fact of inherited alcoholism was yet to be revealed to him. He thought that his father was simply going to rate him for having exce

rief awakening in his bed with Koda Bux standing beside him, the drinking of the crimson-coloured effervescing liquid, and t

ar something like a sentence from his lips. He was very much ashamed of himself, and being so was perfectly prepared to take his punishment which would probably come in the shape of

a look at the clock on the mantel-piece: "I think it is about l

"better, in fact, than it deserves to be. That stuff

, cutting him short, "I think we m

onversation, but to fill up time. Both father and son were as unhappy as men could very well be, and yet the ancient custom which forbids the Anglo-Sa

n the Den they got up, both of them feeling a certain sense

he Den, Sir Arthur s

one here. The door is bolted. N

ed his head, and said in the same language: "Thou art obeyed, Huzu

in the lock, and said to Vane in a tone whose calmn

aid that although you had never disobeyed me before, if I had ordered you to have some you wou

w dreadful minutes after the subtle aroma from the whiskey decanter had reached his nostrils, the swift intoxication, the brilliant series of visions which had passed before his eyes,

made me simply long to drink. I did not want to in the ordinary way, and as I had been having brandy and soda and champagne before, of course, whiskey was the very worst thing I could possibly have drunk. Yet it seemed somehow to get hold of me. I felt as though I had to drink. It didn't matter what it was so long as i

ce. "I suppose you thought when I came back that I was going to give you the usual sort of lecture that a father would give his

ed to receive his sentence. "More serious than that? Surely it is bad enough for a fellow to come home as I did last n

at would you say if I told you that that girl-you remember what you said to me about her li

. You have always told me that I am the only child. Mother died twenty years a

ther had died a few months after you were born, I did not tell you the truth. She died to me and to you, but that w

g of hate in it. His fists even clenched and his shoulders squared as though the impulse was on him to raise his hands against him. But there was such an infinite sadness in Sir Arthur'

oice sufficiently to shape coherent words, but at le

uth, dad. And so I am the son of a disgraced woman, am I? Poor Eny, wh

ey Raleigh had said it would, and spo

onship between you, I went on to Raleigh and told him the whole story, as I thought it was only right to do. He said, very properly I think, that it was a matter fo

knees and his face between his hands, was staring with blank eyes down at the carpet. "And so I am the son of that g

air, let his hands fall limply over

dad," he went on, in a broken, miserable voice. "You

t or two in silence, and then he sai

ou was as good and pure a woman as ever lived when she became your mother, and this girl, from what I have seen of her this morning, I am p

and as for Carol, she is a good girl whatever else she may be. Can't something be done for her, dad? I mean

ry easy. I did suggest something of the sort, of course, but she cut me short very quickly. She simply said that she could not discuss the subject th

owever, that can wait. Now tell me what you were going to tell me. How did all t

at the time, and Simla is, as perhaps you know, not the most moral of places. You were nearly three years old, and for about a year y

t want to hear about it, it's bad enough already. Was Carol right about that light

eyes-and they were just like yours and Carol's-used to light up marvellously. People used to speak of them as the most beautiful eyes in the East; but afterwards, that l

king a little during the afternoon, but I felt that she would be safe there, for both Raleigh and his sister knew of this miserable failing of hers. Unfortunately, I had a lot of work to do that evening, and I was unable

from me; that she could never face me or look upon you again, and that was all. She gave no address, no sign that I could trace her by. If she had done I would ha

making it infamous, and for your sake I was forced to take some decided steps. I took proceedings in the French

strained voice, "doesn't she know who her fa

e scoundrel, whoever he was, who took her away from Simla. As for the divorce, of course I could have got one, but I had no desire to marry again, and I preferred to let the thing rest as it was, rather than drag our name through the cesspool o

mpagne. My blood is poisoned, and so, when I've drunk a certain amount, the smell of alcohol is irresistible. There's one thing perfectly certain, I don't like whiskey and I never

em to get drunk, I went mad. I saw some magnificent visions, they seemed to be all round the room, nickering like the Biograph, then, all of a sudden, they

f, and what I had in the house for friends I kept constantly under lock and key. It seemed to be successful for a time, and then she began to get liquor from somewhere else. I never could find out how or where she did it

giving her the keys of the wine cellar. I had the best medical men in India for her, and at last I got her to consent to go into a Sanitorium

known, she got the liquor secretly through him after you had stopped it. I am beginning already to have

ritten-'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.' Whoever he is

he could have seen how his own prophecy was to be fulfilled, he would have given his right hand, nay, he would even hav

peaking the wheels of Fate

ra found a letter waiting for her. She opened i

ng? I think a night out would do you good aft

ar

me at the 'West End' at 7.30 this evening, and, if possible, bring Miss Vane, as I am bringing a friend, who, after my descrip

will both be

rs e

rna

r last night and this morning, I've got sick of this general knocking-about. Besides, it's no class. All right, I'll come. A bit of a kick-up will do me good, I think. That talk with th

firm did all sorts of work, provided only that it paid; the highest class under their style, and the other sorts-the money-lending and "speculative business"-through their own "jackals," that

one of those strangely constituted men-of whom there are multitudes in the world-who will earn money by the most questionable, if not absolutely dishonest, methods, without a qualm of conscience, and give li

g engagements. His name appeared regularly on the subscription lists published in connection with St. Michael's, Brondesbury, his parish church, and he also paid the rent of No. 15, Melville Gardens, Brook Green, in addition to one hundred and fi

of medium height, well-fed and well-groomed, and not by any means bad-looking, though of an entirely mediocre type-Carol greeted with the easy familiarity of old acquaintance, for she had known him for nearly a year as Dora's 'parti

aid in front of the Criterion the night before. He did it with admirably calculated deference, and in such

sical qualities and good looks, could, when he chose, make himself very pleasing to women, and, without showing a trace of effort, he did his very best to please Miss Car

rent of which Reginald Garthorne and Mr. Bernard Falcon were jointly responsible-of course, under other names. The only condition that Carol had made with Ga