All this time I was in daily communication with Beatrice Sinclair. I got to know her well during these dark days. She was a girl to win the respect and admiration of any man, and she undoubtedly won mine. There was something grandly simple and unconventional about her. "I am alone in the world," she said to me many times; "my mission in life is to save Wilfred Tollemache." "You will not save him by marrying him in his present state," I answered her. She raised her brows and looked at me in some slight surprise. "I have no intention of marrying him at present," she said. "Nothing would induce me to unite my lot with that of a drunkard--besides, I promised my father. I will marry Wilfred when he has abstained from drink for a year--not before." "If he abstains for a year he will be cured," I replied. There came an evening when Tollemache was sufficiently convalescent to come downstairs. I had not yet said anything to him about Miss Sinclair, but as I knew she was impatient to see him, I wondered if it might be safe for me to break the news of her arrival on the scene to him that evening. He sat in my consulting-room huddled up by the fire. The evening was a warm one in April, but he looked chilly and depressed. I drew a chair near him and sat down. He looked at me with languid eyes out of a cadaverous face. "I can't make out why you are so good to me," he said. "I am not worth the thought of a man like you." I did not reply for a moment. Then I said, tersely:-- "It would be a great victory to save you, and I believe it can be done." "I have a sort of memory," said Tollemache, "of your having already saved my life at the risk of your own." "That is true," I answered. "How can I pay you back?" he asked. "Will money----?" "No," I interrupted, harshly, springing to my feet as I spoke--"money won't. I want you to become a man again: that is my reward." He seemed to shrink into himself; there was not a scrap of fibre about him at present. "Will you tell me," I said, "how you got into that den?" He roused himself a little at this, and some animation came into his eyes. "That was partly your fault," he said. "You did not keep your word; you never came to me when I wrote to you. I told you that I was losing self-control----" I interrupted him to explain why I had not received his letter.