"You know it is true, though, Treherne," and he went on speaking to me. "In the Crimea, the great curse of our army was drink. Drink killed more of us than the Russians did. You should have seen what I have seen--the officer maddening himself with champagne at the mess-table--the private stealing out to a rum-store to booze secretly over his grog. The thing was obliged to be winked at, it was so common." "In hospital, too," observed Captain Treherne gradually listening. "Don't you remember telling me there was not a week passed that you had not cases of death solely from, drinking?" "And, even then, I could not stop it, nor keep the liquor outside the wards. I have come in and found drunken orderlies carousing with drunken patients: nay, more than once I have taken the brandy-bottle from under a dead man's pillow." "Ay, I remember," said Augustus, looking grave. Lisabel, who never likes his attention diverted from her charming self, cried saucily:-- "All very fine talking, Doctor,--but you shall not make me a teetotaller, nor Augustus neither, I hope." "I have not the slightest intention of the kind, I assure you: nor does there seem any necessity. Though, for those who have not the power to resist intoxication, it is much safer never to touch stimulants." "Do you never touch them?" "I have not done so for many years." "Because you are afraid? Well, I dare say you were no better once than your neighbours." "Lisabel!" I whispered, for I saw Doctor Urquhart wince under her rude words: but there is no stopping that girl's tongue. "Now confess, Doctor, just for fun. Papa is not here, and we'll tell no tales out of school--were you ever in your life, to use your own ugly word, _drunk?_" "Once." Writing this, I can hardly believe he said it, and yet he did, in a quiet, low voice, as if the confession were forced from him as a sort of voluntary expiation. Doctor Urquhart _drunk!_ What a frightful idea! Under what circumstances could it possibly have happened? One thing I would stake my life upon,--it never happened but that once. I have been thinking, how horrible it must be to see anybody one cared for drunk: the honest eyes dull and meaningless; the wise lips jabbering foolishness; the whole face and figure, instead of being what one likes to look at, takes pleasure to see in the same room, even,--growing ugly, irrational, disgusting--more like a beast than a man.