was ashamed to consult Miss Woolmer, and spent the afternoon in
restless attempts to settle to something, but feeling as if nothing
were worth while, not even attending to Dora, since my faith in Harold
had given way, and he had broken his word and returned to his vice.

Should I go to church again, and spare myself the meeting him at
dinner? I was just considering, when Mr. George Yolland came limping
up the drive, and the sight was the first shock to the selfish side of
my grief. "Is anything the matter?" I asked, trying to speak sternly,
but my heart thumping terribly.

"No--yes--not exactly," he said hastily; "but can you come, Miss
Alison? I believe you are the only person who can be of use."

"Then is he ill?" I asked, still coldly, not being quite sure whether I
ought to forgive.

"Not bodily, but his despair over what has taken place is beyond us
all. He sits silent over the accounts in his room at the office; will
talk to none of us. Mr. Alison has tried--I have--Ben and all of us.
He never looks up but to call for soda-water. If he yields again, it
will soon be acute dipsomania, and then--" he shrugged his shoulders.

"But what do you mean? What can I do?" said I, walking on by his side
all the time.

"Take him home. Give him hope and motive. Get him away, at any rate,
before those fellows come. Mr. Tracy was over at Mycening this
morning, and said they talked of coming to sleep at the 'Boar,' for the
meet to-morrow, and looking him up."

"Lord Malvoisin?" I asked.

And as I walked on, Mr. Yolland told me what I had not understood from
Eustace, that there had been an outcry among the more reckless of the
Foling Hunt that so good a fellow should be a teetotaller. Dermot Tracy
had been defied into betting upon the resolute abstinence of his
hero--nay, perhaps the truth was that these men had felt that their
victim was being attracted from their grasp, and a Satanic instinct
made them strive to degrade his idol in his eyes.

So advantage was taken of the Australian's ignorance of the names of
liqueurs. Perhaps the wine in the soup had already caused some
excitement in the head--unaccustomed to any stimulant ever since the
accident and illness which had rendered it inflammable to a degree no
one suspected. When once the first glass was swallowed, the dreadful
work was easy, resolution and judgment were obscured, and the old
habits and cravings of the days when poor Harold had been a hard
dr