"Mad? Yes, I was mad enough in ever letting myself be overpowered by this bright dream. Here have I been giving myself up to a phantom--an empty illusion--and now it's all over. My eyes are open." "You may as well open my eyes too; for I'll be hanged if I can see my way through this!" "Strange! strange! strange!" continued Dacres, in a kind of soliloquy, not noticing Hawbury's words. "How a man will sometimes forget realities, and give himself up to dreams! It was my dream of the child-angel that so turned my brain. I must see her no more." "Very well, old boy," said Hawbury. "Now speak Chinese a little for variety. I'll understand you quite as well. I will, by Jove!" "And then, for a fellow that's had an experience like mine--before and since," continued Dacres, still speaking in the tone of one who was meditating aloud--"to allow such an idea even for a moment to take shape in his brain! What an utter, unmitigated, unmanageable, and unimprovable idiot, ass, dolt, and blockhead! Confound such a man! I say; confound him!" [Illustration: "CONFOUND SUCH A MAN! I SAY."] And as Dacres said this he brought his fist down upon the table near him with such an energetic crash that a wine-flask was sent spinning on the floor, where its ruby contents splashed out in a pool, intermingled with fragments of glass. Dacres was startled by the crash, and looked at it for a while in silence. Then he raised his head and looked at his friend. Hawbury encountered his glance without any expression. He merely sat and smoked and passed his fingers through his pendent whiskers. "Excuse me," said Dacres, abruptly. "Certainly, my dear boy, a thousand times; only I hope you will allow me to remark that your style is altogether a new one, and during the whole course of our acquaintance I do not remember seeing it before. You have a melodramatic way that is overpowering. Still I don't see why you should swear at yourself in a place like Naples, where there are so many other things to swear at. It's a waste of human energy, and I don't understand it. We usedn't to indulge in soliloquies in South America, used we?" [Illustration: "HAWBURY SANK BACK IN HIS SEAT, OVERWHELMED."] "No, by Jove! And look here, old chap, you'll overlook this little outburst, won't you? In South America I was always cool, and you did the hard swearing, my boy. I'll be cool again; and what's more, I'll get back to South America again as soon as I can. Once on the pampas, and I'll be a man again. I tell you what it is, I'll start to-morrow. What do you say? Come." "Oh no," said Hawbury, coolly; "I can't do that. I have business, you know." "Business?" "Oh yes, you know--Ethel, you know." "By Jove! so you have. That alters the matter."