talk to? So old a friend too; so old a friend! I should have gone mad without it many a time. I'll take one drop--just one little drop. But she mustn't know--she mustn't know." Looking round warily, he, swiftly and with a secret air, drained the glass, and immediately afterwards endeavoured to assume an unconsciousness that he had broken his promise and his oath. But although presently he took a second draught in the same secret manner, it was evident that he could not quite satisfy his conscience, for he pushed the empty glass from him, retaining the bottle in his hand. "What made me buy it? I didn't intend to, and didn't intend to pass the public house; but I got there somehow, and I couldn't resist going in. It seemed to draw me to it. But it'll be my ruin, my ruin, my ruin! The governor said it would, and it will." As he sat there, battling with himself, his deeply-lined face and his thin hair straggling over his forehead, did he have no ambition, no aspiration, no hope, outside the walls of brick which formed his home? This Lizzie of whom he spoke was, according to his own showing, not an old friend. Had he any other link of love, or had other human affection quite died out of his life? It was hard to tell. It seemed that, but for this girl, to whom he was not linked by ties of blood, his life was colourless, purposeless. But every living breast contains a smouldering fire, and even to this old man, wreck as he was, a spark might come to kindle once more into a flame the fire that must have burned when he was young. Supposing him to have been bright and handsome in his youth--as he must have been, despite his worn and almost hopeless face--how, could he have seen it, would he have received a vision of the future which showed him truthfully what he was to be in years to come? A vision of some sort was upon him now, as, sitting with no purpose in his mind, he fell into a doze. From which, after the lapse of a few moments, which seemed to him hours, he awoke with a bewildered air, and looked about him, and listened wonderingly for voices which he might have heard in his dream, or as if the dead past had cast up its ghosts, and he had seen them. He saw something more tangible as he raised his eyes to the door, and recognised his governor, Mr. David Sheldrake. The bottle was still in Muzzy's hand, and he tried to put it out of sight as he rose to welcome his most unexpected visitor. "Surprised to see me, eh, Muzzy!" exclaimed Mr. Sheldrake, in an easy tone. "You're welcome, sir, you're welcome," said Muzzy, his looks contradicting his words. "Anything wrong, sir?" "No, old man, don't be alarmed; there's nothing wrong."