“You are not yourself, mamma.  I’ll explain all to-morrow,” the young girl added soothingly.

“Mr. Jocelyn,” said the physician, with quiet emphasis, “you have injected morphia into your wife’s arm.”

“I have not.”

“My dear sir, I understand your case thoroughly, and so do your wife and daughter, as far as they can understand my explanations.  Now if you will cease your mad folly I can save you, I think; that is, if you will submit yourself absolutely to my treatment.”

“You are talking riddles, sir.  Our poverty does not warrant any assumption on your part.”

“I know the insane and useless instinct of those in your condition to hide their weakness; but can you not control it, and permit me as your friend and physician to help you?  I am seeking your interests, not my own.”

“Curse you!” cried Mr. Jocelyn, in a burst of uncontrollable anger; “if you had been my friend you would have let me die, but instead you have said things to my wife that have blasted me forever in her eyes.  If she had not known, I could have made the effort you require; but now I’m a lost man, damned beyond remedy, and I’d rather see the devil himself than your face again.  These are my rooms, and I demand that you depart and never appear here again.”

The physician bowed coldly, and left the ill-fated family to itself.

Mildred, who overheard her father’s concluding words, felt that it would be useless then to interpose.  Indeed she was so dispirited and exhausted that she could do no more than stagger under the heavy burden that seemed crushing her very soul.

She assisted her mother to retire, and the latter was soon sleeping with a smile upon her lips.  Mr. Jocelyn sat sullenly apart, staring out into the bleak, stormy darkness, and Mildred left him for the first time in her life without giving him his good-night kiss.  As she realized this truth, she sank on her couch and sobbed so bitterly that Belle, who had been meditating reproaches, looked at her with tearful wonder.  Suddenly Mildred arose in strong compunction, and rushed back to her father; but he started up with such a desperate look that she recoiled.

“Don’t touch me,” he cried.  “Put your lips to the gutter of the streets, if you will, but not to such pitch and foulness as I have become.”

“Oh, papa, have mercy!” she pleaded.

“Mercy!” he repeated, with a laugh that froze her blood, “there is no mercy on earth nor in heaven,” and he waved her away, and again turned his face to the outer darkness.

“Millie, oh, Millie, what is the matter?” cried Belle, shocked at her sister’s horror-stricken face.

“Oh, Belle, is there any good God?”

“Millie, I’m bewildered.  What does it all mean?  The evening that began so brightly seems ending in tragedy.”

“Yes, tragedy in bitter truth.  Hope is murdered, life poisoned, hearts made to bleed from wounds that can never heal.  Belle, papa loves opium better than he does you or me, better than his wife and little helpless children, better than heaven and his own soul.  Would to God I had never lived to see this day!”