he terminus, he jumped into a cab, and drove
straight to his club. No, he would not go to the smoke-room, he would go
to his own private room, and there he would drink and forget. A few
minutes later, he sat alone in his room, a bottle of whisky by his side.
With steady hands he uncorked it, and poured out a large quantity; he
filled the tumbler with soda-water, and looked at the yellow liquid as
it sparkled in the glass.

"Here is my wife now," he cried. "She will be faithful to me, or even if
she fails, there is that green devil called absinthe. No, no, the devil
does not forsake a man while he has a five-pound note in his pocket."

Even then he did not lift the glass to his lips. After all, those months
during which he had known Olive still counted. It was true that in spite
of his resolutions he doubted whether he would ever meet her again; but
those hours he had spent by her side were not without their influence.
After all, to be a man was nobler than to be a beast. He recalled her
words on the night he had made known his love to her. She had told him
that the man who trusted in a woman for his salvation rested on a weak
reed, and that only God could save a man. He remembered his answer too.

"If there is a God, I have given Him His chance," he cried, "and He has
failed me. Now I choose this yellow devil. A fascinating devil, too. See
how light and sparkling he is!"

He held the glass up to the light, and watched while the bright gaseous
globules floated from the bottom of the glass to the top.

"Good-bye to false sentiment and false ideals, to false hopes and
foolish fancies!" he cried, "and hereby I do take thee to be my lawful
wedded wife from this day forward, to have and to hold, for better for
worse, for richer for poorer, to love and to cherish, till death us do
part!"

He laughed as he uttered the words.

"All joy to you Radford Leicester, on your wedding-day," he said aloud,
"and may you and your wife be faithful to each other."

And still he hesitated. It might seem as though an invisible angel of
goodness held his hand. Then his thoughts flew to the past, and again to
the future. What had the future for him? He lifted the glass to his
lips, and drank; when he set it down it was nearly empty.

"Ah, but this is the great forgetter," he said.

He sat down in an armchair, and closed his eyes. In a few minutes the
strong spirit began to have its effect on him. The fire crept along his
veins, he fel