“You wish see me smoke opium, lady?” the old man asked, his tone monotonous, devoid of interest, his face a mask.  The light of a tallow candle flared into his eyes, and wavered over his egg-shaped head, which was entirely bald save for its queue.

“Oh, no,” Angela answered, horrified, “I beg you won’t smoke for me!”

“Not for you,” he said.  “I smoke all times.  I must now.  If not, I suffer too much.  It is the smoking keeps me alive.  I cannot eat, or only a little.  My throats shuts up.  But when I smoke, for a few minutes after I am happy.  Then I wait a while, and bimeby I smoke again.”

“Surely—­surely—­you can’t smoke opium all day and all night?” Angela murmured, her lips dry.  She seemed to know what he felt, and to feel it with him.  It was a dreadful sensation, that physical knowledge, racking her nerves like a phase of nightmare.

“Nearly all day and all night, for I do not sleep much; perhaps two hours in twenty-four.  Once, a long time ago, the opium made me sleep.  I had nice dreams.  Now it makes me wide awake.  But I do not suffer, only for a few minutes.  When it gets too bad, I begin again.”

“What is it like—­the suffering?” Angela half whispered.

“Cramps, and aching in my bones.  Maybe you never had a toothache—­you are too young.  But it is like that all over my body.  I wish to die then.  And I will before long.  The death will not hurt much if I keep on smoking.  My heart will stop, that is all.  It will give me a chance to begin again.”

“In another world—­yes,” said Angela.  “But—­couldn’t you stop smoking?  Take medicine of some sort—­have treatment from a doctor——­”

“Too late, long time ago,” he answered, with a calm, fatal smile.  But his eyes lit with a faint spark of anticipation, and his cheeks worked with a slight twitching of the nerves, for, as he talked, in short sentences, he was quietly rolling and cooking his dose of opium.  Into a large pipe, which looked to Angela like a queer, enormous flute with a metal spout halfway down its length, he pushed a pill he had rolled, ramming it in with a long pin, and cooking it in the flame of a small spirit lamp.  He did not speak again until he had pulled strenuously at the pipe a few times.  Then he went on talking, his face unchanged, unless it appeared rather fuller, less seamed with the wrinkles of intense nerve strain.

“You see,” he said, “that is all I do.  I was in a good deal of pain, but I am used to it.  Now I’m contented for a few minutes.  While I have this happiness, I feel willing to pay the price.  But it is a big price.  I warn the young men who come to see me not to begin opium smoking.  It is so easy.  You think you will try, to find out what it is like; and then you will stop.  But you do not stop.  Four weeks—­six weeks—­and it is finished for you.  You are on the road where I am.  That was the way with me.  It is the way with every one who starts on that road and goes not back before the turn.  Better not start, for the dreams are too good at first.”