Guy had always been a bad correspondent, and now he hardly ever wrote to her; but rumors of his wild life reached his mother often, though dimly and vaguely.  It was best so; what would that poor lady have felt if she could have guessed at the scene in which her son was the principal figure as the Christmas morning was breaking?

It is the close of a furious orgie; the Babel of cries, of fragments of songs, of insane, meaningless laughter, is dying away, through the pure exhaustion of the revelers; on the gay carpet and the rich damask are pools of spilled liquors, heaps of shivered glass, and bouquets and garlands that have ceased to be fragrant hours ago.  All around, in different attitudes—­ignoble and helpless—­are strewn the bodies of those who have gone down early in the battle of the Bacchanals:  they lie in their ranks as they fell.  One figure towers above the rest—­pre-eminent as Satan in the conclave of the ruined angels—­the guiltiest, because the most conscious of his own utter degradation.  The frequent draughts that have prostrated his companions have only brought out two round scarlet spots in the pale bronze of his cheeks; his voice retains still its deep, calm, almost solemn tone.  Listen to it as he raises to his lips an immense glass brimming-full of Burgundy:  “One toast more, and with funeral honors—­’To the memory of those who have fallen gloriously on the 24th of December.’”

Is it true that, six months ago, the soft, pure cheek of Constance Brandon rested often on the broad breast that pillows now the disheveled head of that wild-eyed, shrill-voiced Maenad?  Draw the curtains closer yet; shut out the dawn of the Nativity for very shame.

Mohun was breakfasting with Livingstone on a cold, gusty January morning, that succeeded a night of heavy drinking and heavier play.  The colonel would see him through one of these readily enough, but if there was even a single female face present he would retreat in disgust and contempt unutterable.  Guy had been hit so hard that it made him graver than usual as he thought of it, though he was tolerably inured and indifferent to evil fortune; so the conversation languished during the meal.  After it was over, Mohun rose to light a cigar, while his companion took up a pile of letters and began to glance at them listlessly.  Suddenly the former dropped the match from his hand, starting in irrepressible astonishment.

He had seen strong men die hard, mangled and shattered by sabre or bullet, but he had never heard a sound so terribly significant of agony as the dull, heavy groan that just then burst from Livingstone’s lips.

In those few seconds his face had grown perfectly livid; his eyes were riveted upon a small note that he held in his shaking fingers; they glittered strangely, but there was no meaning or expression in their fixed stare.

“In the name of God, what has happened?” Ralph asked.

Guy’s lips worked and moved, but no sound came from them, except an irregular catching of the breath and a gasping rattle in the throat.