"I'll compare it with such experiences as I have had--though of course I'm not what you'd call an _inebriate_." There was a lurking undercurrent of suspicion creeping into his voice once more. "Of course not! Did I ever say so, Mr. Lothian! But what you propose will be of real value to me, if I may have your conclusions." Lothian was flattered. He would show this great scientist how entirely capable he could be of understanding and appreciating his researches. He would collaborate with him. It would be new and exhilarating! "I'll make notes," he replied, "and please use them as you will!" The doctor rose. "Thanks," he answered. "It will be a help. But what we really require is an alcoholic De Quincey to detail in his graphic manner the memories of his past experiences--a man who has the power and the courage to lay open the cravings and the writhings of his former slavery, and to compare them with his emancipated self." Lothian started. When the kindly, keen-faced man had gone, he lay long in thought. In the afternoon Mary came to him. "Do you mind if I leave you for an hour or two, dear?" she asked. "I have some things to get and I thought I would drive into Wordingham." "Of course not, I shall be quite all right." "Well, be sure and ring for anything you want." "Very well. I shall probably sleep. By the way, I thought of asking Dickson Ingworth down for a few days. There are some duck about, you know, and he can bring his gun." "Do, darling, if you would like him." "Very well, then. I wonder if you'd write a note for me, explaining that I'm in bed, but shall be up to-morrow. Supposing you ask him to come in a couple of days." "Yes, I will," she replied, kissing him with her almost maternal, protective air, "and I'll post it in Wordingham." When she had left the room he began to smoke slowly. He felt a certain irritation at all this love and regard, a discontent. Mary was always the same. With his knowledge of her, he could predict with absolute accuracy what she would do in almost every given moment. She would do the right thing, the kind and wise thing, but the certain, the predicted thing. She lived from a great depth of being and peace personified was hers, the peace of God indeed!--but-- "She has no changes, no surprises," he thought, "all even surface, even depth." He admired all her care and watchfulness of him with deep æsthetic pleasure. It was beautiful and he loved beauty. But now and then, it bored him as applied to himself. After six months of the unchanging gold and blue of Italy and Greece, he remembered how he had longed for a grey, weeping sky, with ashen cirrus clouds, heaped tumuli of smoke-grey and cold pearl. And sometimes after a lifeless, rotting autumn and an iron-winter, how every fibre cried out for the sun and the South!