It was the sort of speech to make one feel hot and uncomfortable.  I did not know what to answer, and murmured something about his being no worse than the average.

“Don’t talk like that,” he answered excitedly; “you say that to comfort me, I know; but I don’t like to hear it.  If I thought other men were like me I should be ashamed of being a man.  I’ve been a blackguard, old fellow, but, please God, it’s not too late.  To-morrow morning I begin a new life.”

He finished his work of destruction, and then rang the bell, and sent his man downstairs for a bottle of champagne.

“My last drink,” he said, as we clicked glasses.  “Here’s to the old life out, and the new life in.”

He took a sip and flung the glass with the remainder into the fire.  He was always a little theatrical, especially when most in earnest.

For a long while after that I saw nothing of him.  Then, one evening, sitting down to supper at a restaurant, I noticed him opposite to me in company that could hardly be called doubtful.

He flushed and came over to me.  “I’ve been an old woman for nearly six months,” he said, with a laugh.  “I find I can’t stand it any longer.”

“After all,” he continued, “what is life for but to live?  It’s only hypocritical to try and be a thing we are not.  And do you know”—­he leant across the table, speaking earnestly—­“honestly and seriously, I’m a better man—­I feel it and know it—­when I am my natural self than when I am trying to be an impossible saint.”

That was the mistake he made; he always ran to extremes.  He thought that an oath, if it were only big enough, would frighten away Human Nature, instead of serving only as a challenge to it.  Accordingly, each reformation was more intemperate than the last, to be duly followed by a greater swing of the pendulum in the opposite direction.

Being now in a thoroughly reckless mood, he went the pace rather hotly.  Then, one evening, without any previous warning, I had a note from him.  “Come round and see me on Thursday.  It is my wedding eve.”

I went.  He was once more “tidying up.”  All his drawers were open, and on the table were piled packs of cards, betting books, and much written paper, all, as before, in course of demolition.

I smiled:  I could not help it, and, no way abashed, he laughed his usual hearty, honest laugh.

“I know,” he exclaimed gaily, “but this is not the same as the others.”

Then, laying his hand on my shoulder, and speaking with the sudden seriousness that comes so readily to shallow natures, he said, “God has heard my prayer, old friend.  He knows I am weak.  He has sent down an angel out of Heaven to help me.”

He took her portrait from the mantelpiece and handed it me.  It seemed to me the face of a hard, narrow woman, but, of course, he raved about her.

As he talked, there fluttered to the ground from the heap before him an old restaurant bill, and, stooping, he picked it up and held it in his hand, musing.