In a sudden revulsion of tenderness she sank again on her knees before him, and pleaded in tones of tenderest pathos:  “Martin, I know all; but I am ready to forgive all if you will be true from this time forward.  I know now the cause of all your strange moods which we attributed to ill-health; I know the worst; but if, in humble reliance upon God, you will win back your manhood, the past evil days shall be blotted out, even as God blots out our sins and remembers them no more against us.  We will sustain your every effort with sympathy and loving faith.  We will smile at cold and hunger that you may have time—­Great God!” and she sprang to her feet, white, faint, and panting.

Her husband had taken his hands from his face, and glared at her like a famished wolf.  In his desperate, unnatural visage there was not a trace of manhood left.

“Give me the bottle of morphia you took from my pocket,” he demanded, rising threateningly.  “No words; you might as well read the Ten Commandments to an unchained tiger.  Give it to me, or there is no telling what may happen.  You talk as if I could stop by simply saying, coolly and quietly, I will stop.  Ten thousand devils! haven’t I suffered the torments of the damned in trying to stop!  Was I not in hell for a week when I could not get it?  Do you think I ask for it now as a child wants candy?  No, it’s the drop of water that will cool my tongue for a brief moment, and as you hope for mercy or have a grain of mercy in your nature, give it to me now, now, now!”

The poor wife tottered a step or two toward her daughter’s room, and fell swooning at the threshold.  Mildred opened the door, and her deep pallor showed that instead of sleeping she had heard words that would leave scars on memory until her dying day.

“The poison you demand is there,” she said brokenly, pointing to her bureau.  “After mamma’s appeal I need not, cannot speak,” and she knelt beside her mother.

Her father rushed forward and seized the drug with the aspect of one who is famishing.  Mildred shuddered, and would not see more than she could help, but gave her whole thought and effort to her mother, who seemed wounded unto death.  After a few moments, to her unbounded surprise, her father knelt beside her and lifted her mother to a lounge, and, with a steady hand and a gentle, considerate manner, sought to aid in her restoration.  His face was full of solicitude and anxiety—­indeed he looked almost the same as he might have looked and acted a year ago, before he had ever imagined that such a demon would possess him.

When at last Mrs. Jocelyn revived and recalled what had occurred, she passed into a condition of almost hysterical grief, for her nervous system was all unstrung.  Mr. Jocelyn, meanwhile, attended upon her in a silent, gentle, self-possessed manner that puzzled Mildred greatly, although she ascribed it to the stimulant he had taken.