'To give up all stimulants.'
'Oh, that was impossible! It's just like asking a man to shut his mouth, and breathe only through his nostrils, when he has lived all his life with his mouth open. No man can change his habits all at once, at the fiat of a physician. But I have been very moderate ever since I saw you.'
'And yet you have had another attack?'
'Who told you that?' asked Brian, with an angry glance at his wife.
'Your own appearance tells me—yes, and your pulse. You have been indulging in the old habits—nipping all day long; and you have been sleeping badly.'
'Sleeping badly!' muttered Brian moodily; 'I wish to Heaven I could sleep anyhow. I have forgotten the sensation of being asleep—I don't know what it means. Just as I fancy myself dropping off there comes a flash of light in my eyes, and I am broad awake again. The other night I thought it lightened perpetually, but my wife said there was no lightning.'
'A case of shattered nerves, and all your own doing,' said Dr. Mallison.
'You must leave off brandy.'
'Brandy has left me off,' retorted Brian. 'My wife and her step-mother have gone in for strict economy. I am not allowed a spoonful of cognac, although I tell them it is the only thing that staves off racking neuralgic pains.
'You must endure neuralgia rather than go on poisoning yourself with brandy. For you alcohol is rank poison—you are suffering now from the cumulative effect of all you have taken within the last twelve months. There are men who can drink with impunity—go on drinking hard through a long life; but you are not one of those. Drink for you means death.'
'A man can die but once,' grumbled Brian; 'and an early death is better than an aimless life.'