“I sincerely hope you will take this experienced physician’s advice,” said the senior member of the firm very coldly.  “At any rate we can no longer permit you to jeopardize our interests by your folly and weakness.  The cashier will settle with you, and our relations end here and now.”

“You will bitterly repent of this injustice,” Mr. Jocelyn replied haughtily.  “You are discharging a man of unusual business capacity—­one whose acquaintance with the South is wellnigh universal, and whose combinations were on the eve of securing enormous returns.”

“We will forego all these advantages.  Good-morning, sir.  Did you ever see such effrontery?” he continued, after Mr. Jocelyn had departed with a lofty and contemptuous air.

“It’s not effrontery—­it’s opium,” said the physician sadly.  “You should see the abject misery of the poor wretch after the effects of the drug have subsided.”

“I have no wish to see him again under any aspect, and heartily thank you for unmasking him.  We must look at once into our affairs, and see how much mischief he has done.  If he wants the aid and respect of decent men, let him give up his vile practice.”

“That’s easier said than done,” the physician replied.  “Very few ever give it up who have gone as far as this man.”

CHAPTER XXVII

A SLAVE

The physician was right.  A more abject and pitiable spectacle than Mr. Jocelyn could scarcely have been found among the miserable unfortunates of a city noted for its extremes in varied condition.  Even in his false excitement he was dimly aware that he was facing a dreadful emergency, and following an instinctive desire for solitude so characteristic of those in his condition, he took a room in an obscure hotel and gave himself up to thoughts that grew more and more painful as the unnatural dreams inspired by opium shaped themselves gradually into accord with the actualities of his life.

For a month or two past he had been swept almost unresistingly down the darkening and deepening current of his sin.  Whenever he made some feeble, vacillating effort to reduce his allowance of the drug, he became so wretched, irritable, and unnatural in manner that his family were full of perplexed wonder and solicitude.  To hide his weakness from his wife was his supreme desire; and yet, if he stopped—­were this possible—­the whole wretched truth would be revealed.  Each day he had been tormented with the feeling that something must be done, and yet nothing had been done.  He had only sunk deeper and deeper, as with the resistless force of gravitation.

His vague hope, his baseless dream that something would occur which would make reform easier or the future clearer, had now been dissipated utterly, and every moment with more terrible distinctness revealed to him the truth that he had lost his manhood.  The vice was already stamped on his face and manner, so that an experienced eye could detect it at, once; soon all would see the degrading brand.  He, who had once been the soul of honor and truth, had lied that day again and again, and the thought pierced him like a sword.