Through fire and frost and snow  
I see you go,
 
I see your feet that bleed,
 
My heart bleeds too.
 
I, who would give my very soul for you,
 
What can I do?
 
I cannot help your need.
 
That first evening was one of many others, all on very much the same pattern. David Blake would come in, after tea, or after dinner, sit for an hour in almost total silence, and then go away again. Every time that he came, Elizabeth’s heart sank a little lower. This change, this obscuring of the man she loved, was an unreality, but how some unrealities have power to hurt us.
 
 
December brought extra work to the Market Harford doctors. There was an of amongst the children, combined with one of amongst their elders. David Blake stood the extra strain but ill. He was slipping down the hill. His day’s work followed only too often upon a broken or night, and to get through what had to be done, or to secure some measure of sleep, he had recourse more and more frequently to . If no patient of his ever saw him the worse for drink, he was none the less constantly under its influence. If it did not him, he came to rely upon its , and to distrust his unaided strength. He could no longer count upon his nerve, and the fear of all that nerve failure may involve haunted him continually and drove him down.
 
“Look here, Blake, you want a change. Why don’t you go away?” said Tom Skeffington. It was a late January evening, and he had dropped in for a smoke and a chat. “The press of work is over now, and I could very well manage the lot for a fortnight or three weeks. Will you go?”
 
“No, I won’t,” said David shortly.
 
Young Skeffington paused. It was not much after six in the evening, and David’s face was flushed, his hand unsteady.
 
“Look here, Blake,” he said, and then stopped, because David was staring at him out of eyes that had suddenly grown suspicious.
 
“Well?” said David, still staring.
 
 
“Well, I should go away if I were you—go to Switzerland, do some winter sports. Get a thorough change. Come back yourself again.”
 
There was ever so slight an emphasis on the last few words, and David flashed into sudden anger.
 
“Mind your own business, and be damned to you, Skeffington,” he cried.
 
Tom Skeffington his shoulders.
 
“Oh, certainly,” he said, and made haste to be gone.
 
Blake in this mood was quite impracticable. He had no mind for a scene.
 
David sat on, with a tumbler at his elbow. So they wanted him out of the way. That was the third person who had told him he needed a change—the third in one week. Edward was one, and old Dr. Bull, and now Skeffington. Yes, of course, Skeffington would like him out of the way, so as to get all the practice into his own hands. Edward too. Was it this morning, or yesterday morning, that Edward had asked him when he was going to take a holiday? Now he came to think of it, it was yesterday morning. And he supposed that Edward wanted him out of the way too. Perhaps he went too often to Edward’s house. David began to get angry. Edward was an ungrateful hound. “Damned ungrateful,” said David’s brain. The idea of going to see Mary began to present itself to him. If Edward did not like it, Edward could lump it. He had been told to come whenever he liked. Very well, he liked now. Why shouldn’t he?
 
 
He got up and went out into the cold. Then, when he was half-way up the High Street he remembered that Edward had gone away for a couple of days. It occurred to him as a very agreeable circumstance. Mary would be alone, and they would have a pleasant, friendly time together. Mary would sit in the light and play to him, not to Edward, and sing in that small sweet voice of hers—not to Edward, but to him.
 
It was a cold, crisp night, and the frosty air heightened the effect of the stimulant which he had taken. He had left his own house flushed, , and warm, but he arrived at the Mottisfonts’ as unmistakably drunk as a man may be who is still upon his legs.
 
He brushed past Markham in the hall before she had time to do more than notice that his manner was rather odd, and she called after him that Mrs. Mottisfont was in the drawing-room.
 
 
David went up the stairs walking quite steadily, but his brain, under the influence of one idea, appeared to work in a manner divorced from any of his.
 
Mary was sitting before the fire, in the rosy glow of his imagining. She wore a dim purple gown, with a border of soft dark fur. A book lay upon her lap, but she was not reading. Her head, with its dark curls, rested against the rose-patterned chintz of the chair. Her skin was as white as a white rose leaf. Her lips as softly red as real red roses. A little heart hung low upon her and caught the light. There was a bunch of violets at her waist. The room was sweet with them.
 
Mary looked up half startled as David Blake came in. He shut the door behind him, with a push, and she was startled when she saw his face. He looked at her with eyes, and smiled a meaningless and foolish smile.
 
“Edward is out,” said Mary, “he is away.” And then she wished that she had said anything else. She looked at the bell, and wondered where Elizabeth was. Elizabeth had said something about going out—one of her sick people.
 
“Yes—out,” said David, still smiling. “That’s why I’ve come. He’s out—Edward’s out—gone away. You’ll play to me—not to Edward—to-night. You’ll sit in this nice pink light and—play to me, won’t you—Mary dear?” The words slipped into one another, tripped, jostled, and came with a run.
 
David advanced across the room, moving with caution, and putting each foot down slowly and carefully. His had vanished. He felt instead a pleasant sense of warmth and satisfaction. He let himself sink into a chair and gazed at Mary.
 
“Le’s sit down—and have nice long talk,” he said in an odd, thick voice; “we haven’t had—nice long talk—for months. Le’s talk now.”
 
Mary began to tremble. Except in the streets, she had never seen a man drunk before, and even in the streets, passing by on the other side of the road, under safe protection, and with head , she had felt sick and terrified. What she felt now she hardly knew. She looked at the bell. She would have to pass quite close to David before she could reach it. Elizabeth—she might ring and ask if Elizabeth had come in. Yes, she might do that. She made a step forward, but as she reached to touch the bell, David leaned sideways, with a sudden heavy jerk, and caught her by the wrist.
 
“What’s that for?” he asked.
 
Suspicion roused in him again, and he frowned as he . His face was very red, and his eyes looked black. Mary had cried out, when he caught her wrist. Now, as he continued to hold it, she stared at him in helpless silence. Then qui............