Yet, even as he said this, habit, disturbed in the stronghold of its
power, aroused itself, and furnished him with an argument that
instantly broke down his forming resolution. This argument was his
loss of rest, the consequent debility arising therefrom, and the
actual need of his system for something stimulating, in order to
enable him to enter properly upon the business of the day.

So habit triumphed. Wilkinson, without even pausing at the door,
entered the drinking-house and obtained his accustomed glass of
brandy.

"I feel a hundred per cent. better," said he, as he emerged from the
bar-room and took his way to his store. "That was just what my
system wanted."

Yet, if he felt, for a little while, better as regarded his bodily
sensations, the act did not leave him more comfortable in mind. His
instinctive consciousness of having done wrong in yielding to the
desire for brandy, troubled him.

"I shall have to break up this habit entirely," he remarked to
himself during the morning, as his thought returned, again and
again, to the subject. "I don't believe I'm in any particular
danger; but, then, it troubles Mary; and I can't bear to see her
troubled."

While he thus communed with himself, his friend Ellis dropped in.

I meant to have called earlier," said Ellis, "to ask about your sick