their sakes. But nothing at all was left of
that except a dull aching desire to throw back in the face of the Deity
the little He had left to me. My health, and my intellectual powers, and
my self-respect...."

Her voice came to his ears in the half-whispered words:

"Had He left you so little, after all?"

"Little enough," said Saxham doggedly, "compared with what I had lost. And
as it is the privilege of the Christian to blame either the Almighty or
the devil for whatever ills are brought on him by his own blind, reckless
challenging of the Inevitable--termed Fate and Destiny by classical
Paganism,--so I found myself at odds with One I had been taught to call my
Maker."

In His own acre, close to her beloved dead, with all those little white
crosses marking where other dust that had once praised Him with the human
voice lay waiting for the summons of the Resurrection, it was incredibly
awful to her to hear Him thus denied. She grew pale and shuddered, and
Saxham saw.

"You see that I wish to be honest with you, and open and above-board. I
would not ever have you say to yourself, 'This man deceived--this man
misled me, wishing me to think him better than he was.' There is not much
more to tell you--save that I took what money remained to me at the bank
and from the sale of my last possessions--about a thousand pounds--and
shook the dust off from my shoes, and came out here, drunk, to carry out
my purpose of self-degradation to the uttermost. And I became a foul beast
among beasts that were even fouler, but less vile and less shameful
because their mental and moral standard was infinitely lower than my own.
And they gave me the name you know of." His voice had the ring of steel
smitten on steel. He drew himself up with a movement of almost savage
pride, and the knotted veins swelled on his broad white forehead, and his
blue eyes blazed under his thunderous smudge of black eyebrows.

"The name you know. It used to be called after me when I reeled the
streets--they whispered it afterwards as I rode by. To-day it is
forgotten." His nostrils quivered, and he threw out his hands as if with
that action he tossed something worthless to the winds. "Miss Mildare, I
have not touched Drink--the stuff that was my nourishment and my
sustenance, my comfort and my bane, my deadliest enemy and my only
friend--since that hour when with the last effort of my will I rallied all
my mental and bodily forces to resist its base allureme