And Roberts, with set jaws and feet twisting together, tried to control the leaping muscles and nerves that seemed to be crying out with a thousand gasping mouths for liquor! liquor! The tears of self-inflicted disappointment were stinging beneath his lids when there came to his ears, with infernal power to charm, the delicious "blub-blub-blub" of whiskey poured from a full bottle. He gave a gasp. In an instant his left hand held his hat before his face, his right hand grasped the cup and poured the contents straight and raw down his aching throat. The drink was followed by that convulsive shudder, so familiar to most drunkards. Heart shock someone has called it; but almost before he had returned the cup to its rejoicing owner a delicious warmth and comfort was stealing over him, a sense of well-being made him tolerant even of the disjointed conversation of his chance acquaintance. * * * * * He reported presently at the private office of Manager Thrall, who received him eagerly and greeted him with unusual heartiness. The interview was long and confidential--very. When Jim Roberts finally reached his own room he had been drinking heavily and had been tramping the streets for hours. He was at his very worst. Flinging off only his hat and coat, he cast himself across the bed, and rolling his head face downward on his folded arms, he groaned: "I can't do anything! I'm less than a fly on the wheel! He's all right now--he means well--he honestly does! But, oh! good God! don't I know the man better than he knows himself! Don't I know that Stewart Thrall is never more dangerous than when he means well?" and the poor wretch lay there and grovelled in helpless, drunken misery. CHAPTER XV MRS. LAWTON LAYS PLANS Before Sybil's trunks had been opened and her simple little home-coming gifts distributed, she knew that her sister, the patient, cheerful Dorothy, was being seriously worried by somebody or something, and she had not sat at the family table three times before she saw that her mother waged a secret, petty warfare against the young girl, who was really the mainspring that kept the whole family machinery in clock-work motion. They had been so wholly united in their home-life that this surreptitious nagging, these swift side-glances that made sure John Lawton was out of ear-shot before the jeer or sneer or wounding innuendo was delivered, filled Sybil with amazement as well as hot anger.