The drug was taken, and to his horror he found that it was the same as if he had kindled a conflagration among combustibles ready for the match.  His old craving asserted itself with all its former force.  His will was like a straw in the grasp of a giant.  He writhed, and anathematized himself, but soon, with the inevitableness of gravitation, went to another drug store and was again enchained. [Footnote:  It is a sad fact that more than half of those addicted to the opium habit relapse.  The causes are varied, but the one given is the most common:  it is taken to bridge over some emergency or to give relief from physical pain or mental distress.  The infatuated victim says, “I will take it just this once,” and then he goes on taking it until it destroys him.  I have talked with several who have given way for the second and third time, and with one physician who has relapsed five times.  They each had a somewhat different story to tell, but the dire results were in all cases the same.  After one indulgence, the old fierce craving, the old fatal habit, was again fixed, with more than its former intensity and binding power.]

For a few days Mr. Jocelyn tried to conceal his condition from his family, but their eyes were open now, and they watched him at first with alarm, then with terror.  They pleaded with him; his wife went down on her knees before him; but, with curses on himself, he broke away and rushed forth, driven out into the wilderness of a homeless life like a man possessed with a demon.  In his intolerable shame and remorse he wrote that he would not return until he had regained his manhood.  Alas! that day would never come.

CHAPTER XLIII

Was belle murdered?

Mrs. Wheaton, Mr. Wentworth, and Roger did what they could for the afflicted family, and Roger spent the greater part of several nights in a vain search for the absent man, but he had hidden himself too securely, and was drowning reason, conscience, his entire manhood, in one long debauch.  The young man grew more haggard than ever in his deep sympathy for his friends, for they clung to him with the feeling that he only could help them effectually.  He begged them to move elsewhere, since the odors of the place were often sickening, but they all said No, for the husband and father might return, and this now was their one hope concerning him.

In the second fall of her husband Mrs. Jocelyn seemed to have received her death-wound, for she failed visibly every day.

One night Belle was taken with a severe chill, and then fever and delirium followed.  When Roger came the ensuing evening, Mildred sobbed on his shoulder.