bad. Why d'you ask?"

"Because from the looks of you, I should say it was wearing your nerves
to fiddle-strings. Ever take anything for it?"

Lenox frowned; and Desmond made haste to add: "No call, of course, to
answer a question of that sort. But you look downright ill; and it's
unwise to let that kind of thing become a habit."

"Damned unwise!" Lenox answered, with a smile that did not lift the
shadow from his eyes. "As I know to my cost. The thing has been a
habit with me for longer than I care to reckon."

Desmond raised his eyebrows. He had noticed the fragments in the
fender: the faint suggestion of chlorodyne that still clung in the air.

"My dear Lenox, I am sorry for that. And--the remedy? You must have
tried something before now?"

"Yes. Drugged tobacco:--opium, a good strong mixture," the other
answered bluntly. "You may as well have it straight. You're an
understanding fellow; and no Pharisee."

Then, in a few clipped sentences, he stated the bald facts of the case,
culminating in his discovery of the previous night. He leaned forward
in speaking; elbows on knees; eyes averted from the other's face.

"You see, it's in the blood,--that's the hell of it all," he concluded
fiercely. "This morning, when I'd had my fill of thinking things out,
I took a stiff dose of chlorodyne. Smashed the bottle afterwards, in
disgust. But where's the use? The dice are loaded: and no doubt one
will be driven back to it again, sooner or later."

Words and tone betrayed the dread note of fatalism--the moral microbe
of the East. But men of Theo Desmond's calibre rarely succumb to its
paralysing influence.

"Look here, Lenox,"--he spoke almost brusquely,--"you must get quit of
that notion. No man worth his salt goes to meet failure half-way. I
grant you're on the edge of an ugly pit, and if you insist on peering
into it, your chance is gone. All you have to do is to shut your eyes,
and hang to the reins like the very deuce; if it's only for the sake
of--your wife. Honor told me about her," he added, with more
gentleness.

But Lenox threw up his head impatiently. "My wife?" he repeated on a
note of concentrated bitterness. "The greatest kindness I could do her
would be to plunge wholesale into the pit, and give her back the
freedom she wants. A man with a taint in his blood has no business to
beget children foredoomed to fight--and lose."

"My good chap," Desmond broke in hotly. "I'll never beli