f to-day. I was
thinking of last night." His eyes pierced her through, he bent nearer,
speaking with a horrible deliberation. "Are--you--accustomed--to--
drunken--men?"

Katrine cowered; repulsed and frightened.

"Never--never!--I have never so much as spoken to one--be--"

"Before!" he concluded calmly. "Well! I am drunk, more or less, every
night of my life, and shall be to the end. It's a habit which it is
difficult to break! You thought it would be satisfying for a man to
walk round the deck with a beautiful girl for his companion, feeling the
fresh breeze, watching the sea and the sky; more tempting than a foul
room with the fumes of smoke and whisky.--It _is_ better! For an hour I
was grateful and content. After that--" he hissed the words in her ear,
"after that--sooner than have stayed with you, sooner than exchange your
company for the bottle and the glass, do you know what I would have
done?--I would have lifted you in my arms, and tossed you into that
sea!"

Katrine shrunk from him, aghast. For the first time in her life she
faced the despair of a self-wrecked life, and realised the impotence of
human help. The chains which the years had forged bound this man in his
prison, and she had essayed to free him in a few light hours. If he had
shown signs of excitement or emotion, the moment would have been more
bearable. It was his dreadful composure which rent her heart.

Her lip quivered; she shook her head in helpless distress.

"Why do you tell me this? I didn't ask--I don't want to know. We can
be friends..."

"Can we?" he smiled bitterly. "Are you so brave? That's fine of you,
but it's too late. I am a drunkard, and it has come to this--I don't
even wish to be cured! Drink is my only comfort; the thing that helps
me to forget. The good people among whom you have lived (you have met
only good people, I think. That shows in your face!) they have told you
that it is drunkenness which causes most of the misery in the world. In
future will you try sometimes to reverse the statement, and acknowledge
that it is often misery which causes drink? It caused it with me,--
heart-break and treachery, failure and struggle, and then, at the first
promise of success, _this_!" he tapped his bent chest, "this demon
choking my life. I have nearly a whole lung left. Would you think it?
Down in that cabin, gasping for breath, it is difficult to realise that
there's so much. And they sent me this v