'I have a suspicion—and I think Towler suspects too—that Brian does get brandy—somehow.'

'But how can that be, if your servants are honest, and this attendant is to be depended upon?'

'I can't tell you. I believe the servants are incapable of deceiving me.
Towler, the attendant, comes to us with the highest character.'

'Well, I will be on the alert while I am with you,' said Mr. Jardine; and Ida felt as if he were a tower of strength. 'I have seen these sad cases, and had to do with them, only too often. On some occasions I have been happy enough to be the means of saving a man from his own folly.'

'Pray stop as long as you can with us, and do all you can,' entreated Ida. 'I wish I had asked you to come sooner, only I was so ashamed for him, poor creature. I thought it would be a wrong to him to let anyone know how low he had fallen.'

'It is part of my office to know how low humanity can fall and yet be raised up again,' said Mr. Jardine.

'You won't tell Bessie—she would be so grieved for her cousin.'

'I will tell her nothing more than she can find out for herself. But you know she is very quick-witted.'

There was a change for the worse in Towler's charge next morning, when Ida, who still occupied the room adjoining her husband's bedchamber, went in at eight o'clock to inquire how he had passed the night. Brian was up, half dressed, pacing up and down the room, and talking incoherently. He had been up ever since five o'clock, Towler said; but it was impossible to get him to dress himself, or suffer himself to be dressed. A frightful restlessness had taken possession of him, more intense than any previous restlessness, and it was impossible to do anything for him. His hallucinations since daybreak had taken a frightful form; he had seen poisonous snakes gliding in and out of the folds of the bedclothes; he had fancied every kind of hideous monster—the winged reptiles of the jura formation—the armour-plated fish of the old red sandstone—everything that is grotesque, revolting, terrible—skeletons, poison-spitting toads, vampires, were-wolves, flying cats—they had all lurked amidst the draperies of bed or windows, or grinned at him through the panes of glass.

'Look!' he shrieked, as Ida approached him, soothing, pleading in gentlest accents; 'look! don't you see them?' he cried, pointing to the shapes that seemed to people the room, and trying to push them aside with a restless motion of his hands; 'don't you see them, the lares and lemures? Look, there is Cleopatra with the asp at her breast! That bosom was once beautiful, and see now what a loathsome spectacle death has made it—the very worms recoil from that corruption. See, there is Canidia, the sorceress, who buried the boy alive! Look at her hair flying loose about her head! hair, no, those locks are living vipers! and Sagana, with hair erect, like the bristles of a wild boar! See, Ida, how she rushes about, sprinkling the room with water from the rivers of hell! And Veia, whose cruel heart never felt remorse! Yes, he knew them well, Horace. These furies were the women he had loved and wooed!'