ly honest.

"Well, really, I don't see why I shouldn't," he said, taking up the
decanter and pulling one of the two glasses which Garthorne had put on
the table towards him. "I think I have got over that little weakness
now. At any rate, for the last two years I haven't touched a drop of
anything stronger than coffee, and I've sat here and in other men's
rooms with fellows drinking in an atmosphere, as one might say, full of
drink and tobacco smoke; and except for the smoking--of course I haven't
dropped that--I've never felt the slightest inclination to join them, at
least, after the first month or so--so I think I'm pretty safe now."

"Oh, of course you are!" said Garthorne. "As a matter of fact, you know,
I never thought that there was anything serious in that idea of yours
that you'd inherited the taint from some ancestor of yours. You got
screwed one night for the first time in your life, and it gave you a
fright. But the fact that you've been able to swear off absolutely for
two years, is perfectly clear proof that the craving really existed only
in your own imagination. If it had been real, you couldn't possibly have
done it. Well, here's to us, old man, and to someone else who shall be
nameless just now!"

Vane, in the recklessness of his new confidence, had mixed himself a
pretty stiff dose. As he raised his glass with Garthorne's, something
seemed to drag upon his arm, and something in his soul rose in revolt;
but the old lurking poison was already aflame in his blood. He nodded to
Garthorne and said:

"Thanks, old man. Here's to us and her!"

A few minutes before the words would have seemed blasphemy to him, now
they sounded like an ordinary commonplace. He put the glass to his lips
and emptied it in quick, hungry gulps.

CHAPTER VIII.

"By Jove, that's good," he said, as he put the empty glass down and drew
a long, deep breath. "You only really appreciate that sort of thing
after a long abstinence like mine."

"I should think so," laughed Garthorne, putting down his own empty
glass; "although good and all as a brandy and soda is, especially after
a rather hot night, I should hardly think it was worth while to be T.T.
for two years just to get the full flavour of it. If you don't mind I'll
have another."

"Certainly, old fellow, help yourself," said Vane, pushing the decanter
towards him. "That's made a new man of me. When I got up this morning I
couldn't eat a scrap of breakfast, but that'