“I took up my old home life again. I attended meetings regularly, as my father wished, and devoted myself to my violin. My old German instructor was re-engaged, and I made such good progress that in the summer when I was twenty years of age he suggested that I go to Germany for a year, to continue my musical studies there. “The prospect of a trip abroad filled me with enthusiasm. At first my parents objected, and particularly my mother, who was now in ill health, the result, I shall always believe, of the shock she received at the time of my expulsion from college. I plead so strongly, however, to be permitted to go, that at length both Father and Mother consented, and late in the summer I sailed. “It was a mistake. There is much drinking among German students, and almost immediately I was drawn among the wildest drinkers and roysterers. “During the winter my sister married a prosperous and wealthy young business man. They decided upon a brief wedding trip abroad, and planning a pleasant surprise for me said nothing of it in their letters beyond the particulars of the wedding, for during my absence it was the custom of Father and Helen to write me twice a week minute details of the home life. “I shall never forget the morning they came. I had been out all the previous night with a party of drinking students and had returned to my apartment in a state of such beastly intoxication that I had thrown myself upon a couch, unable to undress and retire to my bed. Here I was sleeping when a loud knocking aroused me. Blear-eyed, unkempt, and smelling foul with liquor, I opened the door. There stood Helen and her husband. “Their wedding trip was spoiled, of course. They decided to return home at once and take me with them. Helen made the excuse to our parents that I was in no physical condition to remain abroad longer. I think my father suspected something of the true cause, but he gave no hint of it, and I resumed my old life, but not with the same chastened feeling that I had experienced on the former occasion. I was becoming hardened. “My father’s church and the manse where we lived were in upper New York, and to satisfy my desire for excitement I used frequently to take a run down town. It was on one of these occasions, a month after my return from abroad, that I met one of my former college companions. He asked me to drink with him and I accepted. One drink led to another, and when the liquor went to our heads we became hilarious and decided to make a night of it. “In the small hours of morning we were sitting at a table in a low cafe and dance hall. Some others were at the table--people I had never met--and one of them made a remark at which I took offense. What it was I do not know. I only know that before my companion or the others at the table knew what I was about, I was on my feet and smashing a chair over the offender’s head.