"No, I don't think I should," she said. "But I am so sorry. I am just the opposite. There is nothing I love so much as a gale like this--a maniac. There, listen to that!" An appalling blast swept by the house, full of shrieks and cries, as if the souls of the lost were being driven along in the pitiless storm, and it seemed as if some window must have burst open, or some door communicating with the night and the tempest have come unlatched, for the thick double curtain which served instead of door between the billiard-room where they sat and the hall outside was lifted a clear foot from the ground, and a flood of cold air, strong as a wind, poured in, making the candles flicker and stream, and stirring the carpet as if a ground swell had passed beneath it. Cochrane jumped up. "Something must be open," he said. "The wind has come right into the house." Maud got up with him, but before he had pulled the curtain aside for her to pass, the strange wind ceased as suddenly as it had begun, and the heavy folds fell to the ground again. But by the front-door, with the latch still in his hand, stood Thurso. The rain dripped from his coat; he was deluged, a waterspout. And Maud's heart sank when she saw him. "Why, Thurso," she said, "what have you been doing? Have you been out in this gale? I thought you were upstairs writing letters." He looked from one to the other as he took off his dripping overcoat, and spoke in a voice that both knew, a stammering, stuttering voice. "I--I finished my letters," he said, "and then I went out to--to post them--yes, post them. You couldn't expect a servant to go out in this. Not--not reasonable. And besides, I--I had not been out all day. I--I wanted a breath of fresh air. Sir James told me to be out as much as I could. How did you hear me come in? I thought you were in the drawing-room." Maud's heart sank--sank. "We were in the billiard-room," she said. She looked at Cochrane. All thought of the gale, all trouble of nerves, and whatever else it was that had been obsessing him all day, had passed from him. His eyes were vivid and alight; his face alert again, and full of that huge vitality that was so characteristic of it. "Why, that was thoughtful of you," he said. "And perhaps a little errand on your own account? Why, man, there's a packet in your coat--no, your breast-pocket. It's bulging. I can see it from here." Thurso's hand tightened on it. "Yes; I can't help it," he said. "Besides, I am much better, am I not? I must break myself of it by degrees, you know." Outside the gale yelled defiance; here inside there was tense silence, but it seemed to Maud as if some conflict mightier than that of the elements was going on. "Ah, do let me have it just this once!" cried Thurso. "I've been without it for a week, and I swear to you by all I hold sacred----" "By laudanum?" said Cochrane.