Here was this large comfortable room with its panelled walls, its old family portraits in their massive gilt frames, this fire of wood logs in a great open hearth, sending out so pleasant and hospitable an invitation to remain. Every fibre of the wretch's body urged him to take the twilight hour and enjoy it. Guest sat down in a great arm-chair, padded with crimson leather, and gazed dreamily into the white heart of the fire. He felt at peace, and for five minutes sat there without movement, looking in the flickering firelight like some grotesque Chinese sculpture, some god of darkness made by a silent moon-faced man on the far shores of the Yang-tze-Kiang. Then Mr. Guest began to move again; the fuel that he had taken was burning out. The man's organism had become like one of those toy engines for children, which have for furnace a little methyl lamp, and which must be constantly renewed if the wheels of the mechanism are to continue to revolve. Mr. Guest rose from the arm-chair and shambled over to the sideboard again. The bottle of curaçao was still almost full, though there did not appear to be any more brandy. That would do, he thought, and he poured from the bottle into his glass as if he had been pouring beer. The wretched man had forgotten that, in his present state--a state upon the very verge of swift and hidden paroxysm and of death--the long abstention of the morning and afternoon had modified his physiological condition. Moreover, the suddenness of these stealthy potations in the dining-room began to have their way with him. He was a man whom it was almost impossible to make intoxicated, as the ordinary person understands intoxication. When Guest was drunk, his mind became several shades more evil, that was all. But at this moment the man succumbed, and in half-an-hour his brain was absolutely clouded and confused. He had forgotten both time and occasion, and could not think coherently. At last he seemed to realize this himself. He rose to his feet and, clutching hold of the dining-room table, swayed and lurched towards the dining-room door. There was a dim consciousness within him of something which was imminently necessary to be done, but which he had forgotten or was unable to recall. "What was it?" he kept asking himself with a thick indistinctness. "I knew I had somethin' to do, somethin' important, can't think what it was." At that moment his hand, which he had thrust into his pocket, touched a key. "I've got it," he said, "'course, I know now. I must go down and put the cap on Rathbone, after I have injected the alcohol preparation. William and I want to sit in front of the screen and follow his thoughts; they are funnier than they ever used to be before we told him what we were doing to him. I'll just take one more drink, then I'll go down-stairs to the cellars at once." CHAPTER XXV AT LAST!