nd mopped his forehead. Sweetwater moved a trifle on his
seat, but the others--men who had passed the meridian of life, who had
known temptations, possibly had succumbed to them, from time to time--sat
like two statues, one in full light and the other in as dark a shadow as
he could find.

"That afternoon," young Cumberland presently resumed, "she was keyed up
more than usual. She loved Ranelagh,--damn him!--and he had played or was
playing her false. She watched him with eyes that madden me, now, when I
think of them. She saw him look at Carmel, and she saw Carmel look at
him. Then her eyes fell on me. I was angry; angry at them all, and I
wanted a drink. It was not her habit to have wine on the table; but
sometimes, when Ranelagh was there, she did. She was a slave to Ranelagh,
and he could make her do whatever he wished, just as he can make you and
everybody else."

Here he shot insolent glances at his two interlocutors, one of whom
changed colour--which, happily, he did not see. "'Ring the bell,' I
ordered, 'and have in the champagne. I want to drink to your marriage and
the happy days in prospect for us all,' It was brutal and I knew it; but
I was reckless and wild for the wine. So, I guess, was Ranelagh, for he
smiled at her, and she rang for the champagne. When the glasses had been
set beside each plate, she turned towards Carmel. 'We will all drink,'
she said, 'to my coming marriage,' This made Carmel turn pale; for
Adelaide had never been known to drink a drop of liquor in her life. I
felt a little queer, myself; and not one of us spoke till the glasses
were filled and the maid had left the dining-room and shut the door.

"Then Adelaide rose. 'We will drink standing,' said she, and never had I
seen her look as she did then. I thought of my evil life when I should
have been watching Ranelagh; and when she lifted the glass to her lips
and looked at me, almost as earnestly as she did at Ranelagh,--but it was
a different kind of earnestness,--I felt like--like--well, like the
wretch I was and always had been; possibly, always will be. She
drank;--we wouldn't call it drinking, for she just touched the wine with
her lips; but to her it was debauch. Then she stood waiting, with the
strangest gleam in her eyes, while Ranelagh drained his glass and I
drained mine. Ranelagh thought she wanted some sentiment, and started to
say something appropriate; but his eye fell on Carmel, who had tried to
drink and couldn't, and h