'Well, dear, I don't know that he said you were mad except when you were the worse for drink, but he said--' 'That I might become mad,' she interposed, 'if I don't abstain from drink. Did he say that?' 'Well, it was something like that, Kate. You know I only just escaped with my life.' 'Only just escaped with your life, Dick! Oh, if I'd killed you, if I'd killed you! If I'd seen you lying dead at my feet!' and unable to think further she fell on her knees and reached out her arms to him. But he did not take her to his bosom, and she sobbed till, touched to the heart, he strove to console her with kind words, never forgetting, however, to introduce a hint that she was not responsible for her actions. 'Then I'm really downright mad?' said Kate, raising her tear-stained face from her arms. 'Did the doctor say so?' This was by far too direct a question for Dick to answer; it were better to equivocate. 'Well, my dear--mad? He didn't say that you were always mad, but he said you were liable to fits, and that if you didn't take care those fits would grow upon you, and you would become--' Then he hesitated as he always did before a direct statement. 'But what did he say I must do to get well?' 'He advised that you should go to a home where you would not be able to get hold of any liquor and would be looked after' 'You mean a madhouse. You wouldn't put me in a madhouse, Dick?' 'I wouldn't put you anywhere where you didn't like to go; but he said nothing about a madhouse.' 'What did he say, then?' 'He spoke merely of one of those houses which are under medical supervision, and where anyone can go and live for a time; a kind of hospital, you know.' The argument was continued for an hour or more. Kate wept and protested against being locked up as a mad woman; while he, conscious of the strong hold he had over her, reminded her in a thousand ways of the danger she ran of awakening one morning to find herself a murderess. Yet it is difficult to persuade anyone voluntarily to enter a lunatic asylum, no matter how irrefutable the reasons advanced may be, and it was not until Dick on one side skilfully threatened her with separation, and tempted her on the other with the hope of being cured of her vice and living with him happily ever afterwards, that she consented to enter Dr. ----'s private asylum, Craven Street, Bloomsbury. But even then the battle was not won, for when he suggested going off there at once, he very nearly brought another fit of passion down on his head. It was only the extreme lassitude and debility produced from the excesses of last night that saved him. 'Oh, Dick, dear! if you only knew how I love you! I would give my last drop of blood to save you from harm.'