sorted to after his
recovery, speaking seriously of the consequences of indulgence. He
spoke as a duty, but as he looked at the gentle, timid woman, he saw
little hope of her doing any good!

Poor Alice was appalled. All she could do was to betake herself to
'the little weapon called All-Prayer,' and therewith to use all
vigilance and all her arts of coaxing and cheering away weariness and
languor, beguiling sleeplessness, soothing pain by any other means. She
had just enough success to prevent her from utterly despairing, and to
keep her always on the strain, and at her own cost, for Mr. Egremont
was far more irritable when he was without the narcotic, and the
serenity it produced was an absolute relief. She soon found too that
Gregorio was a contrary power. Once, when he had suggested the dose,
and she had replied by citing the physician's commands, Mr. Egremont
had muttered an imprecation on doctors, and she had caught a horrible
grin of hatred on the man's face, which seemed to her almost
diabolical. She had prevailed then, but the next time her absence was
at all prolonged, she found that the opiate had been taken, and her
dread of quitting her post increased, though she did not by any means
always succeed. Sometimes she was good-humouredly set aside, sometimes
roughly told to mind her own business; but she could not relinquish the
struggle, and whenever she did succeed in preventing the indulgence she
felt a hopefulness that--in spite of himself and Gregorio, she might
yet save him.

Another hint she had from both the Canon and his wife. When they asked
what place was chosen, Mr. Egremont said he had made Alice write to
inquire of the houses to be had at various resorts--Mentone, Nice,
Cannes, and the like. She was struck by the ardour with which they
both began to praise Nice, Genoa, Sorrento, any place in preference to
Mentone, which her husband seemed to know and like the best.

And when she went downstairs with them the Canon held her hand a
moment, and said, 'Anywhere but Mentone, my dear.'

She looked bewildered for a moment, and the Canoness added, 'Look in
the guide-books.'

Then she remembered Monte Carlo, and for a moment it was to her as
shocking a warning as if she had been bidden to keep her husband out of
the temptation of thieving.

She resolved, however, to do her best, feeling immediately that again
it was a pull of her influence against Gregorio's. Fortune favoured
her so far tha