And when, some hours later, Jacob Stanwood awoke, he found his daughter sitting beside him in the gray dawn. "Why, Elizabeth!" he said, "is anything the matter? Did I disturb you?" She leaned toward him, and laid her hand on his. "You were ill in the night, papa, and asked for a stimulant, and I got it for you." "A stimulant?" he repeated vaguely. "What stimulant? Where did you get it?" "I got it at the store. It's whisky." "Whisky?" he cried, with a sudden, eager gleam. Elizabeth was enchanted to find that she had done the right thing. "Here it is, papa," she said, drawing the flask from her pocket, and pouring a little of the contents into a glass that stood ready. He watched her with that intense, eager gleam. "Fill it up! Fill it up!" he cried impatiently. "A drop like that is no good to a man." He was sitting straight up again, just as she found him in the night. He reached his thin hand for the glass, which he clutched tightly. The smell of the liquor was strong in the room. His eyes were glittering with excitement. The girl stood beside him, contemplating with affectionate delight the success of her experiment. Her utter innocence and unsuspiciousness smote him to the heart. Something stayed his hand so that he did not even lift the glass to his lips. Slowly, with his eyes fixed upon the sweet, young face, he extended his arm out over the side of the bed, the glass shaking plainly in his hold. She did not notice it; she was looking into his face which had softened strangely. "Elizabeth," he said. There was a sound of breaking glass, and a strong smell of liquor pouring out upon the floor. "O papa!" she cried, distressed. He had sunk back against the pillows, pale with exhaustion. But when she lifted the fragments of the glass, saying: "Isn't it a pity, papa?" he only answered in his usual tone, "There's no harm done, my dear. I don't believe it was just what I needed, after all." He smiled with a new, indescribable sweetness and weariness. "I think I could sleep, now," he said. At noon Stanwood was quite himself again; himself and more, he thought, with some surprise. He would not have owned that it was a sense of victory that had put new life into his veins. Victory over a vulgar passion must partake somewhat of the vulgarity of the passion itself. No, Stanwood was not the man to glory in such a conquest. But he could, at last, glory in this daughter of his.