And now, after his useless falsehoods, what should he do?  He was no longer unacquainted with his condition—­few opium victims are, at his advanced stage of the habit—­and he knew well how long and terrible would be the ordeal of a radical cure, even if he had the will-power to attempt it.  He had, of late, taken pains to inform himself of the experience of others who had passed down the same dark, slippery path, and when he tried to diminish instead of increasing his doses of morphia, he had received fearful warnings of the awful chasm that intervened between himself and safety.

A few opium consumers can go on for years in comparative tranquillity if they will avoid too great excess, and carefully increase their daily allowance so as not to exhibit too marked alternations of elation and depression.  Now and then, persons of peculiar constitution can maintain the practice a long time without great physical or moral deterioration; but no habitue can stop without sufferings prolonged and more painful than can be described.  Sooner or later, even those natures which offer the strongest resistance to the ravages of the poison succumb, and pass hopelessly to the same destruction.  Mr. Jocelyn’s sanguine, impulsive temperament had little capacity for resistance to begin with, and he had during the last year used the drug freely and constantly, thus making downward advances in months that in some instances require years of moderate indulgence.  Moreover, as with alcohol, many natures have an unusual and morbid craving for opium after once acquiring the habit of its use.  Their appetite demands it with an imperiousness which will not be denied, even while in soul they recoil and loathe the bondage.  This was especially true of Mr. Jocelyn.  The vice in his case was wrecking a mind and heart naturally noble and abounding in the best impulses.  He was conscious, too, of this demoralization, and suffered almost as greatly as would a true, pure woman, if, by some fatal necessity, she were compelled to live a life of crime.

He had already begun to shrink from the companionship of his family.  The play and voices of his little children jarred his shattered nerves almost beyond endurance; and every look of love and act of trust became a stinging irritant instead of the grateful incense that had once filled his home with perfume.  In bitter self-condemnation he saw that he was ceasing to be a protector to his daughters, and that unless he could break the dark, self-woven spells he would drag them down to the depths of poverty, and then leave them exposed to the peculiar temptations which, in a great city, ever assail girls so young, beautiful, and friendless.  Mildred, he believed, would die rather than sin; but he often groaned in spirit as he thought of Belle.  Their considerate self-denial that he might not be disturbed after his return from business, and their looks of solicitude, pierced him daily with increasing torture; and the knowledge that he added to the monotony of their lives and the irksomeness of their poverty oppressed him with a dejection that was relieved only by the cause of all his troubles.