"I couldn't have conceived it was so, so unnerving, Gilbert," Rita said, shrinking close to him. "It is pretty beastly," Lothian answered. "It's simply a dictionary of crime though, that's all--rather too well illustrated." "I don't want to know of these horrors. One sees them in the papers, but it means little or nothing. How dreadful life is though, under the surface!" Gilbert felt a sudden pang of pity for her, so young and fair, so frightened now.--Ah! _he_ knew well how dreadful life was--under the surface! For a moment, in that tomb-like place a vision came to him, sunlit and splendid, calm and beautiful. He saw his life as it might be--as doubtless God meant it to be, a favoured, fortunate and happy life, for God does not, in His inscrutable wisdom chastise all men. Well-to-do, brilliant of mind, with trained capacity to exact every drop of noble joy from life; blessed with a sweet and beautiful woman to watch over him and complement him; did ever a man have a fairer prospect, a luckier chance? His Hell was so real. Heaven was so near. He had but to say, "I will not," and the sun would rise again upon his life. To the end he would walk dignified, famous, happy, loving and deeply-loved--if only he could say those words. A turn of the hand would banish the Fiend Alcohol for ever and ever! But even as the exaltation of the thought animated him, the dominant false Ego, crushed momentarily by heavenly inspiration, growled and fought for life. Immediately the longing for alcohol burned within him. They had been nearly an hour among the figures. Lothian longed for drink, to satisfy no mere physical craving, but to keep the Fiend within quiescent. He had come to that alternating state--the author of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" has etched it upon the plate for all time--when he must drug the devil in order to have a little license in which to speak the words and think the thoughts of a clean man leading a Christian life. So the vision of what might be faded and went. The present asserted itself, and asserted itself merely as a brutish desire for poison. All these mental changes and re-adjustments took place in a mere second of time. Rita had hardly made an end of speaking before he was ready with an answer. "Poor little Rita," he said. "It was your choice you know. It _is_ horrible. But I expect that the weather, and the inexorable fact that we have to part this afternoon for a time, has something to do with it. Oh, and then we haven't lunched. There's a great influence in lunch. I want a drink badly, too. Let's go." Rita was always whimsical. She loved to assert herself. She wanted to go at least as ardently as her companion, but she did not immediately agree. "Soon," she said. "Look here, Gilbert, we'll meet at the door. I'm going to flit down this aisle of murderers on the other side. You go down this side. And if you meet the Libricides--Toftrees et femme I mean, call out!"