that his father would come in and begin at once to haul him over the
coals on account of what had happened the night before. He did not feel
altogether satisfied about his adventure with Miss Carol, and he was
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 exceeded the
bounds of prudence during his night out, for coming home in a cab with
such a person as Miss Carol, and then, worse than all, to tell him that
he had made a beast of himself by beginning to drink whiskey when he was
alone after having refused to take anything while his father was in the
room. It was that that he was really afraid of.

He had no idea of what had happened since the time that he had fallen
from his chair on to the hearth-rug, saving only the brief awakening in
his bed with Koda Bux standing beside him, the drinking of the
crimson-coloured effervescing liquid, and then the long, calm sleep
which had spread itself like a gulf between the agony of the one
awakening and the peace of the next.

He was sitting in one of the big arm-chairs in the library when his
father came in. He got up and stood before him, something as a criminal
might do before his judge, expecting to hear 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 few cold words of reproof, and a hard look in his
father's eyes which he had seen before. But, instead of that, when he
got up out of the arm-chair, and began somewhat falteringly:

"Dad, I'm awfully sorry----" his father stopped him, and said with a
look at the clock on the mantel-piece: "I think it is about lunch time,
isn't it? Yes, there is the gong. How's your appetite?"

"Well, better than I thought it would be," said Vane, "better, in fact,
than it deserves to be. That stuff that Koda gave me this morning has
worked wonders----"

"Very well, then," said Sir Arthur, cutting him short, "I think we may
as well go and have some lunch."

The meal was eaten in a somewhat awkward silence, broken by odds and
ends of talk which were obviously spoken and replied to, not for the
purpose of conversation, but