'Not now,' Brian answered, with a semi-hysterical laugh. 'It is too late. There comes an hour, you know, even in your all-merciful creed, when the door is shut. "Too late, ye cannot enter now." The door is shut upon me. I fooled my life away in London. It was pleasant enough while it lasted, but it's over now. I can say with Cleopatra--"O my life in Egypt, O, the dalliance and the wit."' They were in the hall by this time. The broad marble-paved hall, with its marble figures of gods and goddesses, of which nobody ever took any more notice than if they had been umbrella stands. They were crossing the hall on their way to the drawing-room, when Brian suddenly clutched John Jardine's arm and reeled heavily against him, with an appalling cry. 'Hold me!' he screamed; 'hold me! I am going down!' It was one of the dreadful symptoms of his dreadful disease. All at once, with the solid black and white marble beneath his feet, he felt himself upon the edge of a precipice, felt himself falling, falling, falling, into a bottomless pit. It was an awful feeling, a waking nightmare. He sank exhausted into John Jardine's arms, panting for breath. 'You are safe, it is only a momentary delusion,' said Mr. Jardine. 'Have you had that feeling often before?' 'Yes--sometimes--pretty often,' gasped Brian. Mr. Jardine's wide reading and large experience as a parish priest had made him half a doctor. He knew that this was one of the symptoms of delirium tremens, and a symptom seen mostly in cases of a dangerous type. He had suspected the nature of Mr. Wendover's disease before now; but now he was certain of it. He went with Brian to his room, advising him to lie down and rest. Brian appearing consentient, Mr. Jardine left him, with Towler in attendance. In the drawing-room the Vicar contrived to get a little quiet talk with Ida, while at the other end of the room Lady Palliser was expatiating to Bessie upon the minutest details of her boy's illness. He invited Ida's confidence, and frankly told her that he had fathomed the nature of Brian's disease. 'I have seen too many cases in the course of my parochial experience not to recognise the painful symptoms. I am so sorry for you and for him. It is a bright young life thrown away.' 'Do you think he will not recover?' 'I think it is a very bad case. He is wasted to a shadow, and has a worn, haggard look that I don't like. And then he has those painful hallucinations--that idea of falling down a precipice, for instance, which are oftenest seen in fatal cases.' Ida told him of the scene in the church yesterday--she confided in him fully--telling him all that Dr. Mallison had said of the case. 'What can I do?' she asked, piteously. 'I don't think you can do more than you are doing. That man who waits upon your husband is a nurse, I suppose?' 'Yes. Dr. Mallison sent him.' 'And care is taken that the patient gets no stimulants supplied to him?' 'Every care--and yet--' 'And yet what?'