As regards this pledge to me, I think he kept it, for I heard indirectly from him several times during the year, and the report was always good. He was back again in Paris, but had given up all his old companions, and was working faithfully. That year one of his pictures received a prize in the salon, and he was prophesied a great future. I was away during the next year and a half, looking up interests of mine in America, and heard little that was going on among my own people. On the evening of my return to our village, therefore, I was surprised to see the big house at Redfern gaily illuminated, and was told by the servants that there had been bad doings up on the hill for many a day. The temptation of the old life had been too strong; he had gathered his all too willing crowd of former associates around him, and was “celebrating” with all the pent up passion of a _roué_ who has walked in the narrow path for nearly a year. He was sick with his old trouble twice that month, and both times for old friendship’s sake I did what I could for him; but I saw there must come an end before many months. But such an end! I was surprised one day to hear the servants talking in the next room, for they said that all the crowd at Redfern had left for the city that morning, with the exception of Master Richard, who was shut up in his room working all day like mad on some picture, and drinking furiously at night. The end of it all came one night two weeks later, about ten o’clock in the evening, when one of the maids came down to my house, white and trembling, to tell me that “Master Richard was down with the horrors again, worse than ever, and would I please come up as quick as possible.” I hurried on a hat and coat, and followed her up the hill. As we turned in at the little gate in the garden I was startled by a shriek so terrible that I turned to the trembling maid questioningly. “That’s the way he’s been at it for an hour, sir,” she whispered, and her teeth chattered as she spoke, though the night was not cold. She left me at the door of his room and I went in alone. At first I could see nothing, for the light was turned down; but from the bed there came a low, moaning noise. Then, suddenly, the clothes were thrown aside, and, God help me, I saw a face the like of which I pray I may never see again. I have doctored many men in my time, and I have seen some sights that are not nice to think about; but never have I seen such nameless horror, such uncontrollable fear, as looked at me from the eyes of that man.