ng how powerless he was
to expose the fallacies that outraged him. He was stunned by a fire of
blank cartridge, and obliged to retreat before it But now that it's all
over, I may find the amusement a costly one. And then, I drank too much
wine--" She gave a heavy sigh, and turned away to hide her look. "Yes,"
resumed he, with a fierce bitterness in his tone, "the momentary flush
of self-esteem--Dutch courage, though it be--is a marvellous temptation
to a poor, beaten-down, crushed spirit, and wine alone can give it; and
so I drank, and drank on."

"But not to excess," said she, in a half-broken whisper.

"At least to unconsciousness. I know nothing of how or when I quitted
the Rectory, nor how I came down the cliffs and reached this in safety.
The path is dangerous enough at noonday with a steady head and a
cautious foot, and yet last night assuredly I could not boast of
either."

Another and a deeper sigh escaped her, despite her efforts to stifle it.

"Ay, Grace, the doctor was right when he said to me, 'Don't go there.'
How well if I had but taken his advice! I am no longer fit for such
associates. They live lives of easy security,--they have not the cares
and struggles of a daily conflict for existence; we meet, therefore, on
unequal grounds. Their sentiments cost them no more care than the French
roll upon their breakfast-table. They can afford to be wrong as they
can afford debt, but the poor wretch like myself, a bare degree above
starvation, has as little credit with fine folk as with the huckster. I
ought never to have gone there! Leave me now," added he, half sternly;
"let me see if these gases and essences will not make me forget
humanity. No, I do not care for breakfast,--I cannot eat!"

With the same noiseless step she had entered, she now glided softly from
the room, closing the door so gently that it was only when he looked
round that he was aware of being alone. For a moment or two he busied
himself with the objects on the table; he arranged phials and retorts,
he lighted his stove, he stood fanning the charcoal till the red mass
glowed brightly, and then, as though forgetting the pursuit he was
engaged in, he sat down upon a chair, and sank into a dreamy revery.

Another low tap at the door aroused him from his musings, and the low
voice he knew so well gently told him it was his morning to attend the
dispensary, a distance fully three miles off. More than one complaint
had been already made of hi