e I went, too," said Vane. "You certainly don't
look very fit to-night, dad. Hope I haven't made you uncomfortable by
what I've been saying. You needn't be afraid though. I don't think I
shall forget the lesson I've had to-night."

"No, no, I don't think you will, Vane. Well, good-night. Put the spirits
and cigars away, will you?"

"Good-night, dad! I hope you'll be all right in the morning."

As the door closed behind his father, Vane went to the table on which
the open spirit-stand stood. His father had forgotten to replace the
stopper in the whiskey decanter, and the aroma of the ripe old spirit
rose to his nostrils. Instantly a subtle fire seemed to spread through
his veins and mount up to his brain. The mad craving that he had felt
outside the Criterion came back upon him with tenfold force. He raised
the decanter to his nostrils and inhaled a long breath of the subtle,
vaporous poison. He looked around the room with burning eyes.

He was alone. There was no guardian angel near him now. Moved by some
impulse other than his own will, he took his father's glass and poured
out half a tumblerful of whiskey, filled it with soda water from the
syphon, and drank it down with quick feverish gulps. Then he set the
glass on the table and went and looked at himself in an Indian mirror
over the mantel-piece. The pupils of his eyes seemed twice their size,
and in each a yellow flame was leaping and dancing.

His face seemed transfigured. It was rather that of a handsome satyr
than of an English lad of twenty. The lips were curled in a scornful
sneer, the nostrils were dilated and the eyebrows arched. He laughed at
himself--a laugh that startled him, even then. He went back to the
table and poured out more whiskey, smelt it and drank it down raw.

His blood was liquid flame by this time. He was no longer in the room.
The walls and ceiling had vanished, and all round him vivid pictures
were flitting, pictures of things that he had seen during the day,
flickering and flashing like those of the Biograph; but Carol's face and
soft brown eyes seemed somehow to be in the middle of all of them.

He dropped into a chair and felt about half blindly for the decanter.
When he got hold of it he emptied it partly into the glass and partly
over the table-cloth. He lifted the glass to his lips with both hands,
drained it half chokingly, and then the pictures stopped moving and grew
dim. A black pall of darkness seemed to come down and cr