"You will understand now, Doctor Urquhart, and I wish to name it as a sort of apology for former close questioning, my extreme horror of drunkenness, and my satisfaction at finding that Mr. Treherne has no propensity in this direction." I answered:-- "Certainly not; that, with all the temptations of a mess-table, to take much wine was, with him, a thing exceedingly rare." "Rare! I thought you said he never drank at all?" "I said he was no drunkard, nor at all in the habit of drinking." "Habits grow, we know not how," cried the old man, irritably. "Does he take it every day?" "I suppose so. Most military men do." Mr. Johnston turned sharp upon me. "I must have no modifications, Doctor Urquhart. Can you declare positively that you never saw Captain Treherne the worse for liquor?" To answer this question directly was impossible. I tried to remove the impression I had unfortunately given, and which the old man had taken up so unexpectedly and fiercely, by enlarging on the brave manner in which Treherne had withstood many a lure to evil ways. "You cannot deceive me, sir. I must have the truth." I was on the point of telling him to seek it from Treherne himself, when, remembering the irritation of the old man, and the hotheaded imprudence of the young one, I thought it would be safer to bear the brunt myself. I informed Mr. Johnston of the two only instances when I had seen Treherne not himself. Once after twenty-four hours in the trenches, when unlimited brandy could hardly keep life in our poor fellows, and again when Miss Lisabel herself must be his excuse. "Lisabel? Do not name her. Sir, I would rather see a daughter of mine in her grave, than the wife of a drunkard." "Which, allow me to assert, Captain Treherne is not, and is never likely to be." Mr. Johnston shook his head incredulously. I became more and more convinced about the justness of my conjecture about his past life, which delicacy forbade me to enquire into, or to use as any argument against his harshness now. I began to feel seriously uneasy. "Mr. Johnston," I said, "would you for this accidental error--" I paused, seeing at the door a young lady's face, Miss Theodora's. "Papa, tea is waiting." "Let it wait then: shut the door. Well, sir?" I repeated, would he, for one accidental error, condemn the young man entirely? "He has condemned himself; he has taken the first step, and his downward course will be swift and sudden. There is no stopping it, sir," and he struck his hand on the table. "If I had a son, and he liked wine, as a child does, perhaps; a pretty little boy, sitting at table and drinking healths at birthdays, or a schoolboy, proud to do what he sees his father doing,--I would take his glass from him, and fill it with poison, deadly poison--that he might kill himself at once, rather than grow up to be his friends' and his own damnation--a _drunkard_."