concealed. That day of liberty always seemed but a little in advance.
He surely had the will and the strength to give up a mere drug. He
who had led charges amid the smoke and thunder of a hundred cannon,
and had warded off sabre-thrusts from muscular, resolute hands,
was not going to be pricked to death by a little syringe in his
own hand. His very thraldom to the habit seemed an improbable,
grotesque dream, which some morning would dissipate, but as a
matter of experience each morning brought such a profound sinking
and "goneness" that his will-power shrivelled like a paper barricade
before the scorching intensity of his desire. After the stimulant
began its work, however, all things seemed possible, and nothing
more so than his power to abandon the drug when he should fully
decide upon the act.

On the morning of Mildred's arrival, having lifted himself out of
his chronic dejection by the lever of opium, he went to meet her
with the genuine gladness of a proud, loving father asserting itself
like a ray of June light struggling through noxious vapors. She
was delighted to find him apparently so well. His walk and the heat
had brought color to his face, the drug had bestowed animation and
confidence, while his heart gave an honest, loving welcome without
the aid of any stimulant. They rode uptown together as happily and
hopefully as if the nearly empty car were their own carriage, and
they were seeking a home in Fifth Avenue instead of a tenement-house;
but the hope and happiness of one was based on youth, love, faith,
courage, and inexperience, and of the other on a lurid cloud that
would darken steadily except as renewed gleams were shot through it
by a light that was infernal. Any kindly man or woman would have
smiled appreciatively to see the handsome father and beautiful
daughter apparently as absorbed in each other's plans and interests