because he had the power to overcome it if he would simply resolve
to do right regardless of the consequences; and these would be
slight indeed compared with the results of further indulgence. He
had better lose his situation a hundred times; he had better see
his family faint from hunger for weeks together, should such an
ordeal be an essential part of his struggle for freedom, for only
by such an unfaltering effort could he regain the solid ground on
which enduring happiness and prosperity could be built. As it was,
he was rapidly approaching a point where his habit would become a
terrible and uncontrollable disease, for which he would still be
morally responsible--a responsibility, however, in which, before
the bar of true justice, the physician who first gave the drug
without adequate caution would deeply share. He felt his danger as
he sat cowering over the dying fire; even with its warmth added to
that of the summer night he shivered at his peril, but he did not
appreciate it in any proper sense. He resolved again, as he often
had before, that each day should witness increasing progress, then
feeling that he MUST sleep he bared his arm and sent enough of
Magendie's solution into his system to produce such rest as opium
bestows.

To her surprise Mildred found the awakening of her father a difficult
task the following morning. The boat on which his wife and children
were to arrive was probably already at the wharf, and she had thought
he would be up with the sun to meet them, but he seemed oppressed
with an untimely stupor. When at last he appeared he explained that
the fire on the hearth had induced a fit of brooding over the past
and future, and that he had sat up late.

"Here's a cup of coffee, papa," she said briskly, "and it will wake