ime is so short. I am not speaking
professionally or from the religious standpoint, but only just as one
man of the world to another, just as one friend to another, because I
cannot bear to see you going on like this without trying to stop you.
Don't take offence, Nick," he added, as he saw the change of the other's
countenance; "our old friendship gives me a right to speak; the story
you are writing on your own face gives me a right to speak. Give it up.
There is time yet to turn; give it up. Let me help you; is there
nothing I can do to help?"

The angry look that crossed Mr Sharnall's face had given way to
sadness.

"It is all very easy for you," he said; "you've done everything in life,
and have a long row of milestones behind you to show how you've moved
on. I have done nothing, only gone back, and have all the milestones in
front to show how I've failed. It's easy to twit me when you've got
everything you want--position, reputation, fortune, a living faith to
keep you up to it. I am nobody, miserably poor, have no friends, and
don't believe half we say in church. What am I to do? No one cares a
fig about me; what have I got to live for? To drink is the only chance
I have of feeling a little pleasure in life; of losing for a few moments
the dreadful consciousness of being an outcast; of losing for a moment
the remembrance of happy days long ago: that's the greatest torment of
all, Willis. Don't blame me if I drink; it's the _elixir vitae_ for me
just as much as for Paracelsus." And he turned the handle of the
cupboard.

"Don't," the Bishop said again, putting his hand on the organist's arm;
"don't do it; don't touch it. Don't make success any criterion of life;
don't talk about `getting on.' We shan't be judged by how we have got
on. Come along with me; show you've got your old resolution, your old
will-power."

"I _haven't_ got the power," Mr Sharnall said; "I can't help it." But
he took his hand from the cupboard-door.

"Then let me help it for you," said the Bishop; and he opened the
cupboard, found a half-used bottle of whisky, drove the cork firmly into
it, and put it under his arm inside the lappet of his coat. "Come
along."

So the Bishop of Carisbury walked up the High Street of Cullerne with a
bottle of whisky under his left arm. But no one could see that, because
it was hid under his coat; they only saw that he had his right arm
inside Mr Sharnall's. Some thought this an act of C