Captain De Stancy knew himself conquered: he knew he should yield to Paula--had indeed yielded; but there was now, in his solitude, an hour or two of reaction. He did not drink from the bottles sent. He went early to bed, and lay tossing thereon till far into the night, thinking over the collapse. His teetotalism had, with the lapse of years, unconsciously become the outward and visible sign to himself of his secret vows; and a return to its opposite, however mildly done, signified with ceremonious distinctness the formal acceptance of delectations long forsworn. But the exceeding freshness of his feeling for Paula, which by reason of its long arrest was that of a man far under thirty, and was a wonder to himself every instant, would not long brook weighing in balances. He wished suddenly to commit himself; to remove the question of retreat out of the region of debate. The clock struck two: and the wish became determination. He arose, and wrapping himself in his dressing-gown went to the next room, where he took from a shelf in the pantry several large bottles, which he carried to the window, till they stood on the sill a goodly row. There had been sufficient light in the room for him to do this without a candle. Now he softly opened the sash, and the radiance of a gibbous moon riding in the opposite sky flooded the apartment. It fell on the labels of the captain’s bottles, revealing their contents to be simple aerated waters for drinking. De Stancy looked out and listened. The guns that stood drawn up within the yard glistened in the moonlight reaching them from over the barrack-wall: there was an occasional stamp of horses in the stables; also a measured tread of sentinels--one or more at the gates, one at the hospital, one between the wings, two at the magazine, and others further off. Recurring to his intention he drew the corks of the mineral waters, and inverting each bottle one by one over the window-sill, heard its contents dribble in a small stream on to the gravel below. He then opened the hamper which Dare had sent. Uncorking one of the bottles he murmured, ‘To Paula!’ and drank a glass of the ruby liquor. ‘A man again after eighteen years,’ he said, shutting the sash and returning to his bedroom. The first overt result of his kindled interest in Miss Power was his saying to his sister the day after the surreptitious sight of Paula: ‘I am sorry, Charlotte, for a word or two I said the other day.’ ‘Well?’ ‘I was rather disrespectful to your friend Miss Power.’ ‘I don’t think so--were you?’ ‘Yes. When we were walking in the wood, I made a stupid joke about her.... What does she know about me--do you ever speak of me to her?’ ‘Only in general terms.’ ‘What general terms?’ ‘You know well enough, William; of your idiosyncrasies and so on--that you are a bit of a woman-hater, or at least a confirmed bachelor, and have but little respect for your own family.’