garden. She followed him with some apprehension. He was pale, his lips
were more closely pressed, his eyes more round and burning, than ever.

When they were beyond the range of Miss Medora's attentive eye, he
began abruptly:

"I have not come here before, dear Miss Percy, because I had to
conquer my selfish disappointment. You cannot fail to know what my own
hopes were. But I have conquered and we will never allude to the
matter again. My friendship for Warner is now uppermost and it is of
him I wish to speak."

"Yes? Yes?"

"Last night I sat late with him. He is full of hope, of youth--renewed
youth must seem a wonderful possession to a man: we are so prone to
let it slip by unheeded! Well, he is changed. I never hoped for half
as much. He tells me that the demon has fled. He has never a sting of
its tail. That may be because he never really craved drink save when
writing--until these last years. It is this I wish to talk to you
about. You have the most solemn responsibility that ever descended
upon a woman: a beautiful soul, a beautiful mind in your keeping. If
you ever relax your vigilance--ever love him less----"

"I never shall."

"No," he said with a sigh, "I don't fancy you will. But you must never
leave him. He is not weak in one sense, but in loneliness he might
turn to composition again, and there could be but one result."

"But if he had done without stimulant for a long while--was quite
happy--well, do not you think I might be stimulant enough?" She
laughed and blushed, but she brought it out.

Lord Hunsdon shook his head. "No, I do not believe that even you
could work that miracle. I have known him since we were at Cambridge
together, and I am convinced that there is some strange lack in that
marvellous brain which renders his creative faculty helpless until
fired by alcohol. If the human brain is a mystery how much more so is
genius? Much is said and written, but we are none the wiser. But this
peculiar fact I do know. The island records and traditions tell us
that all his forefathers save one were abstemious, dignified, normal
men, mentally active and important. But his grandfather, who spent the
greater part of his time in London, was one of the most dissolute men
of the Regency. He was a wit at court, a personal friend of the Prince
Regent. There was no form of dissipation he did not cultivate, and he
died of excess at a comparatively early age. By what would seem to be
a special tinkering