“I never stopped you before,” he said. “And I’m not going to stop you now. But you laudanum-drinkers are such selfish fellows. You get away by yourselves, and drink by yourselves, and never treat anybody else. I want some of that too. Do you remember saying that perhaps it would end in your converting me? Well, let’s make a beginning to-night. Let’s have a jolly good drink together. You’ve got enough for us both, I expect, in that big bottle.”
Thurso still looked suspicious, and he kept his hand on his package. But Cochrane’s manner was perfectly sincere, and soon he gave a little cackle of delight. His eyes, too, like Cochrane’s, were very bright, but they were bright with thirst and desire. His mouth, too, so watered that he could hardly swallow quick enough to keep the saliva down.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said, “but I’ll do anything if you’ll let me take it, and not stop me. There’s enough for me for to-night and for you for a week. And may I get some more to-morrow?”
“You may do what you choose to-morrow,” said Cochrane, “if you will give me some to-night. I’ve often wanted an opportunity, a proper opportunity, to take it. Why, you might say I had quite a craving for it.”
Maud was looking from one to the other, utterly puzzled. She came close to Cochrane.
“Mr. Cochrane, what are you going to do?” she said. “What are you about? I am frightened.”
He looked at her quickly and radiantly.
“Ah, don’t be frightened,” he said. “You must help and not hinder. I know I am right. Don’t be afraid, and don’t doubt.”
CHAPTER V.
THEY went back into the billiard-room again; outside the wild hurly-burly of the storm still screamed and wailed round the house, but Cochrane now was utterly unconscious of it. A clear command, louder than the wind and the tattoo of rain, the “still small voice” which made all else inaudible, had come to his soul. He knew that what he was going to do was right, and had no fear at all of the consequences. Consequences? He gloried in them, and embraced them, for they would be nothing else than a demonstration, convincing and conclusive, as to the truth of all he taught and worked and believed. He had said to Maud half an hour ago that he did not then know what he should do if Thurso had a relapse, but now that the relapse had come he knew. He was perfectly certain that he was doing right.