"All! and quite enough too. You knew, in the old days, when I took one glass it meant more." "I am not to blame for your weakness." "No doubt--but knowing that weakness you might have left me alone." "Well, well," said Beaumont impatiently, "my back is broad enough to bear your sins as well as my own. What are you going to do now?" "Stay here for two or three days, and then go away," replied Nestley. "I've risked my all on the cast of a die--and lost, so I'm going back to my own town, and live out the remainder of my life as best I can." "Have you said good-bye to Miss Challoner?" "No, nor do not intend to; she knows my degradation. I can see it in her eyes, in her manner, in the way she shrinks from me. I have lost the best part of myself--my self-respect." Beaumont was hard and callous as a rule, but he could not help feeling a pang of pity for the abject misery of the man whom he had brought so low. "Come, come, Nestley," he said cheerily, patting the doctor on the back, "I'm truly sorry I ever persuaded you to touch the wine, but you'd better leave this place at once. When you are back again, in your own home, you will once more take up your old life of temperance and hard work." "It is too late--the evil is done." "Rubbish! it's never too late to mend; leave Garsworth without delay." "And leave you to make love to Miss Challoner!" "I," said Beaumont, with an enigmatic smile, "nonsense--I'm past the age of love--you can make your mind easy on that score; but, as I will probably see Miss Challoner, shall I make your adieux to her?" "If you like," returned Nestley gloomily, "and give her these keys--they belonged to the Squire, and I forgot to give them into her possession." Here was a wonderful piece of luck; the very keys he was in search of, delivered into his hands without any difficulty whatsoever. Beaumont did not believe in astrology, but surely at that moment he must have thought his lucky star was in the ascendant. With his habitual craftiness, however, he suppressed all outward manifestations of joy, and took the keys from Nestley with an assenting smile. "I won't forget," he said calmly, slipping them into his pocket, "and you will take my advice about leaving the village." "Why are you so anxious for me to go?" asked Nestley suspiciously. "For your own good." "And for your own ends too, I've no doubt," retorted the doctor bitterly. "You never did anything in your life without a motive." "Very well," said Beaumont, strolling to the door, "if you don't choose to take my advice, stay here and drink yourself to death, as you will surely do--please yourself, my friend." "Please myself," echoed Nestley, when the door closed on Beaumont. "I intend to, Basil Beaumont--you've got some plan to carry out, or you would not remain so placidly in this dull village--so I'll stay and see the game out; and, if I can thwart you I will, if it's only to punish you for the evil you have done to me."