"That makes fifteen," remarked the young man as he rose to go, whereupon Colonel Stuart assented cheerfully, for he had won that evening; and Belle looked up with a smiling farewell, unconscious and content. She lived in a fool's paradise, hugging the belief that her presence was the charm; as though Niagara was to be stemmed by a straw, or the habit of years by a sentiment. As time wore on, the few remaining ladies fled before that last awful pause ere the rains break, when a deadly weariness settles on all living things. Belle, feeling shy among so many men, ceased to go out except on the rare occasions when she could persuade her father to accompany her. But, though he still adhered to his habit of dining at home, he was moody and out of sorts. He, too, had heard rumours of transfer, and that meant the possibility of disaster not to be faced with composure. Restless and irritable, he began to relieve the great craving which took possession of him by all sorts of stimulant and narcotic drugs. And one day came an almost illegible note from him, bidding Belle not wait dinner for him. She felt instinctively that this was the beginning of trouble; nor was she wrong, for though Colonel Stuart was full of excuses the next evening, he never even sent a note the day after that. So Belle ate her solitary dinners as best she might, and though she often lay awake till the small hours of the morning brought an altercation between Budlu and her father, she never sat up for him, or made any effort to meet him on his return. From this time, brutal though it may seem to say so, poor Belle's presence in the house, so far from being an advantage, became a distinct drawback. But for it, Colonel Stuart would have yielded to the mad craze for drink which generally beset him at this time of the year; and after a shorter or longer bout, as the case might be, have been pulled up short by illness. Instead of this, he tried to keep up appearances, and drugged himself with chloral and laudanum till the remedy grew worse than the disease so far as he himself was concerned. It served, however, to hide the real facts from his daughter; for he met her timid protests by complaints of ill-health, assertions that he knew what was best for him, and absolute refusal to call in a doctor.