For a moment Harry lay there stunned, the broken toilet jug lying in shivers around him, the water soaking into him from head to foot; then, as he came to himself, his startled screams filled the room and he struggled up and sat looking round. He was more frightened than hurt, but the sight of that broken jug terrified him more than the fall and the wetting. Wouldn't Aunt Jane whip him when she knew! There was great tenacity in Harry's character. He gathered himself up at last, and opened the box and found his frock and its pocket and its precious contents. He looked at the frock a long time lovingly, then he replaced it, pushed back the box, set the bed straight and gave an involuntary shiver. He was soaked from head to foot, and though it was summer weather, he felt very, very cold. He sat down by the empty fireplace and shivered again, and by-and-by he fell fast asleep and dreamed strange dreams, but always he was very, very cold. CHAPTER XXII. OUT OF THE NORTH. In the stillness of a quiet summer evening, when the darkness had fallen and the stars looked down from a far sky, and the soft moonbeams shone silvery on dark trees and velvet lawns, John Gray, Bank Manager, knelt at an open window, his arms resting on the sill, his face turned skywards. In the silence, in the stillness of that summer night, the great battle of his life was being fought out beneath the stars. Backwards and forwards raged the battle. Thoughts of what he must give up if he turned his back on this temptation and did not satisfy his desire for strong drink; the friends who would flaunt him; the friends who would pity him for his weakness in yielding to the influence of abstaining noodles; the friends who would smile and bid one another wait a bit, and John Gray would be taking his glass with them again; the awful haunting fear that they were right, that he would only make himself ridiculous and never hold out; all these things seemed ranged on one side against him, and on the other side what was there? His wife Elaine. She had promised to help him, for them to start together, to turn out of their home and their entertaining all intoxicating beverages, to stand side by side in their social circle and be abstainers. Then there was Reggie. He was helping already. Not ostentatiously, not in a burdensome way. Only just a cycle ride here and there, or a walk, or a concert, or an hour on the church organ, when Reggie would blow and Mr. Gray, who was musical, would play as nobody in the town, not excepting the organist, could play. Or a game of chess in Mrs. Gray's drawing-room, while Elaine played or sang to them and served them with delicious coffee. There were other friends too--friends who had been shy of him and Elaine lately, but who had once been pleasant, intellectual friends, and who would be friends again if things were different. All these were on the other side.