It was true that Dr. Morton Sims had told her many scientific facts, had explained and explained. He had definitely said that Gilbert was in the clutches of a disease; that Gilbert couldn't really help himself, that he must be cured as a man is cured of gout. And then, when she had asked the doctor how this was to be done, he had so little comfort to give. He had explained that all the advertised "cures"--even the ones backed up by people of name, bishops, magistrates, and so on, were really worthless. They administered other drugs in order to sober up the patient from alcohol. That was easy and possible--though only with the thorough co-operation of the patient. After a few weeks, when health appeared to be restored, and the will power was certainly strengthened, the "cure" did nothing more. The _pre-disposition_ was not eradicated. That was an affair to be accomplished only by two or three years of abstinence and not always then. --"I'll talk to Mrs. Daly about it," the sad wife said to herself. "She is a noble, Christian woman. She understands more than even the doctor. She _must_ do so. She loves our Lord. Moreover she has given her life to the cause of temperance." . . . But she must be careful and diplomatic. The natural reticence and delicacy of a well-bred woman shrank from the unveiling, not only of her own sorrow, but of a beloved's shame. The coarse, ill-balanced and bourgeois temperament bawls its sorrow and calls for sympathy from the sweepings of any Pentonville omnibus. It writes things upon a street wall and enjoys voluptuous public hysterics. The refined and gracious mind hesitates long before the least avowal. "You said," she began, after a period of sympathetic silence, "that you had been in deep waters." Julia Daly nodded. "I guess it's pretty well known," she said with a sigh. "That's the worst of a campaign like mine. It's partly because every one knows all about what you've gone through that they give you a hearing. In the States the papers are full of my unhappy story whenever I lecture in a new place. But I'm used to it now and it doesn't hurt me. Most of the stories are untrue, though. Mr. Daly was a pretty considerable ruffian when he was in drink. But he wasn't the monster he's been made out to be, and he couldn't help himself, poor, poisoned man. But which story have you read, Mary?" "None at all. Only Dr. Morton Sims, when he wrote, told me that you had suffered, that your husband, that----" "That Patrick was an alcoholic. Yes, that's the main fact. He did a dreadful thing when he became insane through drink. There's no need to speak of it. But I loved him dearly all the same. He might have been such a noble man!" "Ah, that's just what I feel about my dear boy. He's not as bad as--as some people. But he does drink quite dreadfully. I hate telling you. It seems a sort of treachery to him. But you may be able to help me."