"Stop!" cried Cargill. "I--I'll come with you, Stranack."

Oddly enough, he felt much better when they were actually on the river.
He had never been afraid of water, as such. And the familiar scenery,
together with the wholesome exercise of sculling, acted as a tonic to
his nerves.

They pulled above Molesey lock. When they were returning, Stranack said:

"You'll take her through the lock, won't you?"

It was a needless remark, and if Stranack had not made it all might have
been well. As a fact, it set Cargill asking himself why he should not
take her through the lock. He was admitted to be a much better boatman
than Stranack, and everyone knew that it required a certain amount of
skill to manage a lock properly. Locks were dangerous if you played the
fool. Before now people had been drowned in locks.

The rest was inevitable. He lost his head as the lower gates swung open,
and broke the rule of the river by pushing out in front of a launch. The
launch was already under way, and young Cargill trying to avoid it
better, thrust with his boat-hook at the side of the lock. The thrust
was nervous and ill-calculated, and the next instant the skiff had
blundered under the bows of the launch.

It happened very quickly. The skiff was forced, broadside on, against
the lock gates, and was splintered like firewood. Cargill fell
backwards, struck his head heavily against the gates--and sank.

He returned to consciousness in the lock-keeper's lodge. He had been
under water a dangerously long time before Stranack, who had suffered no
more than a wetting, had found him. It had been touch and go for his
life, but artificial respiration had succeeded.

He soon went to pieces after that.

From one of the windows of his chambers the river was just visible. One
morning he deliberately pulled the blind down. The action was important.
It signified that he had definitely given up pretending that he had the
power of shaking off the obsession.

But if he could not shake it off, he could at least keep it temporarily
at bay. He started a guerilla campaign against the obsession with the
aid of the brandy bottle. He was rarely drunk, and as rarely sober.

He was sober the day he was compelled to call on an aunt who lived in
the still prosperous outskirts of Paddington. It was one of his good
days and, in spite of his sobriety, he had himself in very good control
when he left his aunt.

In his search for a cab it became necessary for him