"Perhaps you think of morphia as a pleasure?" he added.
"Think of it, instead, as a tyrant--that tortures the mind if
held to, and the body if cast off." Urged by the darkness and
the silence of his companion, the rein of his speech had
loosened. In that moment he was not Chilcote the member for
East Wark, whose moods and silences were proverbial, but
Chilcote the man whose mind craved the relief of speech.

"You talk as the world talks--out of ignorance and
self-righteousness," he went on. "Before you condemn
Lexington you should put yourself in his place--"

"As you do?" the other laughed.

Unsuspecting and inoffensive as the laugh was, it startled
Chilcote. With a sudden alarm he pulled himself up.

"I--?" He tried to echo the laugh, but the attempt fell flat.
"Oh, I merely speak from--from De Quincey. But I believe this
fog is shifting--I really believe it is shifting. Can you
oblige me with a light? I had almost forgotten that a man may
still smoke though he has been deprived of sight." He spoke
fast and disjointedly. He was overwhelmed by the idea that he
had let himself go, and possessed by the wish to obliterate
the consequences. As he talked he fumbled; for his
cigarette-case.

His bead was bent as he searched for it nervously. Without
looking up, he was conscious that the cloud of fog that held