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one more visit would probably be the last I should be obliged to make to him. He evidently did not respond to my overtures in the direction of moral suasion, and, much occupied with other matters, I had almost passed him from my mind. Two days after that evening, however, I received a short note from him; it ran as follows:—

"Will you come and see me as a friend? I'm like a bear with a sore head, but I promise not to be uncivil.

"Yours sincerely,

"Wilfred Tollemache."

I sent a reply by my man to say that I would have much pleasure in visiting him about nine o'clock that evening. I arrived at Mercer's Hotel at the hour named. Tollemache received me in a private sitting-room. Bottles containing wines and liqueurs were on the table. There was a box of cigars and pipes.

"You have not begun that again?" I could not help saying, glancing significantly at the spirits as I spoke.

"No," he said, with a grim sort of smile, "I have no craving at present—if I had, I should indulge. These refreshments are at your service. At present I drink nothing stronger or more harmful than soda-water."

"That is right," I said, heartily. Then I seated myself in a chair and lit a cigar, while Tollemache filled a pipe.

"It is very good of you to give up some of your valuable time to a worthless chap like me," he said.

There was a strange mingling of gratitude and despair in the words which aroused my sympathy.

"It was good of you to send for me," I rejoined. "Frankly, I take an interest in you, but I thought I had scared you the other night. Well, I promise not to transgress again."

"But I want you to transgress again," said Tollemache. "The fact is, I have sent for you to-night to give you my confidence. You know the condition you found me in?"

I nodded.

"I was in a bad way, wasn't I?"

"Very bad."

"Near death—eh?"

"Yes."

"The next attack will prove fatal most likely?"

"Most likely."

Tollemache applied a match to his pipe—he leant back in his chair and inhaled the narcotic deeply—a thin curl of blue smoke. ascended into the air. He suddenly removed the pipe from his mouth.

"Twenty-three years of age," he said, aloud, "the only son of a millionaire—a dipsomaniac! Craving comes on about every three to four months. Have had delirium tremens twice—doctor says third attack will kill. A gloomy prospect mine, eh, Halifax?"

"You must not sentimentalize over it," I said; "you have got to face it and trample on the enemy. No man of twenty-three with a frame like yours and a brain like yours need be conquered by a vice."

"You know know nothing about it," he