They went back into the billiard-room again; outside the wild hurly-burly of the storm still screamed and wailed round the house, but Cochrane now was utterly unconscious of it. A clear command, louder than the wind and the tattoo of rain, the "still small voice" which made all else inaudible, had come to his soul. He knew that what he was going to do was right, and had no fear at all of the consequences. Consequences? He gloried in them, and embraced them, for they would be nothing else than a demonstration, convincing and conclusive, as to the truth of all he taught and worked and believed. He had said to Maud half an hour ago that he did not then know what he should do if Thurso had a relapse, but now that the relapse had come he knew. He was perfectly certain that he was doing right. He rang the bell as soon as he got to the fireplace. "We want some glasses, I suppose, don't we?" he said. "I beg your pardon, may I ring? Because I have rung." Thurso looked at him secretly. "Better for the servants not to know," he said. "Why not? We're doing nothing to be ashamed of," he said. "I should like everybody to know. Ah! Would you bring a couple of glasses, please?" he said to the man. Thurso came close to him, and whispered: "I take a little water and sugar with mine," he said. "Perhaps hot water would be nice; I got so wet." "Yes, very wise," said Cochrane. "And some hot water and sugar, please," he added. Then a sudden distrust came into Thurso's mind. "You are not going to cheat me?" he asked. Cochrane felt one moment of vast pity for him. Ever since he and Maud had gone out into the hall, and found him stealthily closing the door so that his return should be unheard, he had felt it was a different personality from the Thurso of the last three days whom they had discovered there dripping from his secret errand. It was as if he was possessed; he was furtive and suspicious and bubbling with this one desire; nothing remained of him but Thirst, and the jealous fear that it was not going to be quenched--Thirst for that drug which had already dragged him so near to the precipitous edge of ruin and death, and that expunged from his mind all sense of honour, all the rudimentary moral code by which men are bound, all sense that anything in the world existed except Thirst and the quenching of it. "You shouldn't have said that," he said quietly, "because I never have cheated you or anybody, and you have no right to suppose that I ever should. Dear me! how long they are bringing our glasses! Did you forge the prescription again?" Again Thurso gave that dreadful little cackle of cunning laughter. He took such pleasure in his success, such pride as some foolish-natured dog takes in doing its "trick." "Well, yes, I suppose I did," he said, "and I forged Sir James's name quite beautifully. The one I did on the steamer was a clumsy affair. And I wrote it on a rather crumpled piece of paper, so that it looked to be an old prescription."