shape of the quotation is something about
putting an enemy in our mouth to steal away our
brains. It occurs in Othello."

"You should lecture," I said, sarcastically,
"on the immortal bard, and on the unities.
Reserved seats, five shillings. Your exegesis—
I believe that is the new word — your exegesis
would be entertaining. You would draw."

This bitterness silenced him. He would not
again presume to be merry at my expense.

"You must come with me," I said to him,
"as near to midnight as is convenient."

"Midnight!" he said, amazed. "Where?
Why?"

Where? Why?

"To Triton Villas; and because I want you,"
said I, answering his two questions curtly.
"That is the where, and the why. We are
going to walk by night. I must satisfy the
horrid doubts that you have raised."

"I raised! When? Where?" He stopped
himself hastily. " I mean, I raised none."

"We will watch," I said; "you at the back,
I at the front. You at the side, I at the other;
you all round generally, I everywhere. You
understand me?"

"No," he said, vacantly.

"And yet," I said, with pity, " if I
addressed you in the slang of your profession—
for cricketing, with the addition of pipes, is
your profession — you would understand, I could
adapt my language to the meanest capacity; but
I won't."

He was stung by this cutting remark, and
agreed without a word more.

Towards midnight, or more accurately speaking,
about eleven o'clock, we again — and for the
last time — joined in a cab, on the old commandité
principle. I had a strange foreboding, as I
took my seat, and the strange sound of the door
closing with a jar and discordant jam.
Something was impending, I was convinced, but I
would know the worst.

We reached the neighbourhood of Triton
Villas, and drew up the vehicle in a by-lane,
where he was to wait our coming. I may add
that this arrangement was not perfected until
after the exhibition of a disheartening lack of
confidence in the person who drove, and who
required a partial settlement of his claims before
he would consent to let us go our way. I went
my way cautiously, my friend following vacantly
as in a dream. Here was — were—which is it?
Triton Villas.

All was still, as I looked over the railings;
all was hushed in repose. Not a sound. From
one window, and from one only, flashed light.
I knew whose window it was, from information
I had received. When I received it, I thought
myself blessed; but there are things — and I
don't know whose the thought is — which it is
better wisdom not to know. It was her window,
without shutters, but with a yellow blind
down — alas! too much down — illuminated from
behind. Shadows — a shadow, rather— passed
at times fitfully across. A grand, stately, full,
comprehensive shadow, which I would have
picked out among a thousand shadows. These
reflections have an individuality of their own.

We were still at the railings, looking through.
He coughed; there was a slight fog, natural
in the country, rising from the ground. I turned
on him fiercely, and he did not cough again for
some time. Suddenly the shadow, hitherto
restive and unsteady, acquired a darker intensity,
which could be explained, on principles of
natural philosophy, by a nearer approach to the
window. It seemed to expand in size, and
remained perfectly calm and quiescent. What
was she — it — about to do? Had she—it—
seen us? My breath came and went.
Suddenly — how shall I tell it? but I was near to
fainting at the moment, and but for the rails
would have fallen — I saw — saw—saw distinctly,
projected—yes, projected is the word—with all
the vividness of a spectral image in a photograph,
projected upon the blind, a shadow of
some material object in her hand. Indistinct
at first, with a horrible vividness, it gradually
took shape — a vile, odious, terrific, but
unmistakable shape. The outlines of an object but
too familiar, tapering at the neck (the object's
neck), distended and swollen about the body
(the object's body), and distinctly applied to
the mouth (her mouth) — a FLASK! its contents
partaken of, not, not by the agency of the
vehicles furnished by civilisation, but with the
degrading simplicity of savage life.

It was all over. The dream was past, and I
tottered away to — the cab, my friend
humanely leading me.

This, then, was the secret of those mysterious
allusions — the "little vice which she was
addicted to" — of which she dare not tell her
parents, and " the materials" for which (there
was an Irish student at an Inn of Court always
calling for what he called the materials; I knew
what he meant) she had to "get in" privately.
Worse than all, was the strange moral obliquity
which could lead her to speak so lightly of the
fatal passion, which would lead her by slow
degrees down the abyss.

Such a night I spent. A female, too! Was
not this the most degrading feature. Moralists
tell us, that for a man there is hope, but once
a female become enslaved, then reformation is
all but impossible!

I determined to tear her from my heart,
and go back to the outraged Ffollett, to the
Erskine, the Scarlett, too long neglected. And
yet I could not shut out her image, that is to
say, that particular image, with its horrid
accompaniment. It was always before my eyes.

She wrote to me, inviting me to go and see
her; she wanted to talk to me, she said: I
understood her. (I did understand her.) In a
postscriptum she added, " Perhaps I may
confide to you the little weakness you were so
curious about."

I wrote a reply, half mysterious, half scornful
—I wonder what she thought of it. I told