d not for a moment
intend to lapse into his old habits.

But after he had been about for two days, back came the sciatic pains.
He grumbled savagely. The _Mareng_ had ceased. The Maggiore seemed
kindling the heavens with its clear, fierce blast. The sun would have
been hot as in August but for the wind. There seemed no earthly reason
for the return of the sciatica. He must get rid of this nuisance before
the races, by hook or by crook. He shrank from the idea of taking more
morphia in its Italian form. The nausea had been too wearing. Besides,
he did not wish to go to Caccia's a second time for it. It occurred to
him to take the motor-boat and run over to Stresa. The first chemist
there would probably have English or American preparations of the drug.
He succeeded in finding a little case of an American preparation of
morphia and atropine. But he was still extremely cautious, not only in
regard to others, but about himself. Such doses as he took were very
small (he would cut the tablets in half with his penknife--carefully
burning the blade first in a candle-flame). And he always took them at
bedtime, so that by the next morning the extreme dryness of his mouth
would have passed. The pain kept nagging him. And in the intervals
between the doses of morphia that hateful weakness came over him. He
began to drink Cognac regularly with his meals. This worried Sophy--she
could not think so much brandy good for him. At her suggestion he bought
some Scotch whiskey in Pallanza. But the smooth, oily liquor, tempered
by soda, was not what he wanted. It was even distasteful to him. What he
craved was the keen bite of the raw brandy in his stomach and blood.

He grew very irritable at times, under the double stress of the
intermittent pain, and the desire for larger doses of morphia than he
dared take. His extreme caution would not let him continue drinking the
Cognac at meals, since Sophy had objected to it. It might make her
suspect something. So he fell into the way of taking a glass here and
there, wherever he chanced to be, at some _cafe_ in Intra or Pallanza,
or even in Ghiffa.

He did not find Amaldi so companionable, either, since he had been
suffering in this way.

"Rather a wooden chap, that Amaldi, when one comes to see more of him,"
he said to Sophy.

One evening, when Amaldi chanced to be at Villa Bianca, Chesney again
asked his wife to sing. She went at once to the piano. Amaldi sat
leaning forward, looking down