Marrion Latham was a tall, splendid-looking man, with a proud, commanding manner. His intimates styled him, “The Conqueror.” He had always had a handsome annuity besides the income he realized from his plays. He had enough money to make the hard world soft, win favors, gild reputation, and enable one to ride instead of walk through life; consequently, he had self-indulgent habits, and was destitute of those qualities of self-endurance and self-control that hard work and poverty teach best. Yet he had that high sense of honor which is most necessary to such an imaginative, passionate and self-willed nature as he possessed. While he sat there quietly, Robert became restless. The stupor was wearing off, and the dreaded awakening came. “May I trouble you for a glass of water?” was Marrion’s request, that would absent Mrs. Milburn for awhile. Robert made a ferocious movement, and began thumping his head. “Wheels in it,” he muttered. “Be quiet, she does not suspect you,” Marrion whispered. Cherokee came back to find her husband in the delirious throes of his spree. With sweet and tender solicitude, she asked: “Do you feel better, dear?” “I have been desperately ill,” was his almost rational response. “Bravo,” was Marrion’s mental comment, “so far, so good.” Now, if she would only allow him to be quiet; but who ever saw a woman tire of asking questions, and who ever saw a drunken man that did not have a tongue for all ten of the heads he imagined he had? Cherokee chimed in again: “I have been very uneasy about you. You know I expected you home by ten.” “Ten! Fifty would be more like it. I know I took that money.” “What do you mean, Robert?” she asked, as she stared at him, amazed and wounded. “He means nothing, he is flighty; that’s the way the medicine affects one,” Marrion explained. “I tell you she is deucedly pretty”--with this Robert calmed down for awhile. “He is surely out of his head, Mr. Latham.” “No, I am not,” thundered Robert, “I should feel better if I were,” and all at once he came to his senses. “What does this mean? What am I doing, lying down in my dress suit?” he demanded, “and it is broad day.” “It means that you have kept me up all night lying for you,” whispered Marrion. “The devil you say! have I had too much?” Cherokee had gone from the room with the stain of wild roses on her cheek, for she had at last understood the situation, and its terrible significance. “I will leave you now, old boy, and I hope this will not occur again. You have an angel for a wife.” “Thank you, Latham, stay for breakfast with us.” “No, I have an appointment early this morning.” At the door he turned and called to Milburn: “Oh, Milburn, when you have the headache again, there is one thing you must not forget.” “What’s that?” “Chloral,” he answered, chaffingly. CHAPTER XVI. A BOLD INTRUDER.