Ingworth thought for a moment. "Thanks awfully," he said, almost throwing off all disguise now. Then he hesitated--"But that might simply throw her into Lothian's arms," he said. Toftrees shook his head. "I shall put it to Mr. Podley," he said, "and he, being receptive of other people's ideas and having few of his own, will repeat me, to point out the horrors of a divorce case, the utter ruin if Mrs. Lothian were to take action." Ingworth rose from his seat. "To-night?" he said. "You're to see this Podley to-night?" "Yes." "Then when do you think he will talk to Rit--to Miss Wallace?" "I think I can ensure that he will do so before lunch to-morrow morning." "You will be doing a kind and charitable thing, Toftrees," Ingworth answered, making a calculation which brought him to the doors of the Podley Institute at about four o'clock on the afternoon of the morrow. Then he took his leave, congratulating himself that he had moved Toftrees to his purpose. It was an achievement! Rita would be frightened now, frightened from Gilbert for ever. The thing was already half done. "Mine!" said Mr. Dickson Ingworth to himself as he got into a taxi-cab outside Lancaster Gate. "I think I shall cook master Lothian's goose very well to-night," Herbert Toftrees thought to himself. Mixed motives on both sides. Half bad, perhaps, half good. Who shall weigh out the measures but God? Ingworth was madly in love with Rita Wallace, who had become very fond of him. He was young, handsome, was about to offer her advantageous and honourable marriage. Ingworth's passion was quite good and pure. Here he rose above himself. "All's fair"--treacheries grow small when they assist one's own desire and can be justified upon the score of morality as well. Toftrees was outside the fierce burning of flames beyond his comprehension. He was a cog-wheel in the machinery of this so swiftly-weaving loom. But he also paid himself both ways--as he felt instinctively. He and his wife owed this upstart and privately disreputable poet a rap upon the knuckles. He would administer it to-night. And it was a _duty_, no less than a fortunate opportunity, to save a good and charming girl from a scamp. When Toftrees told his wife all about it at lunch that morning she quite agreed, and, moreover, gave him valuable feminine advice as to the conduct of the private conversation with Podley. CHAPTER VIII THE AMNESIC DREAM-PHASE "In the drunkenness of the chronic alcoholic the higher brain centres are affected more readily and more profoundly than the rest of the nervous system, with the result that the drinker, despite the derangement of his consciousness, is capable of apparently deliberate and purposeful acts. It is in this dream-state, which may last a considerable time, that the morbid impulses of the alcoholic are most often carried into effect."