"You say that I am an opium-eater," he continued wrathfully. "I am--I am! For years I was possessed of seven devils which tore at me, and, in despair, I took to the drug. Mother Mandarin! you know her well, and she knows me. Many a time have I crept down that foul lane in Lambeth to the foul den of that old hag, and there with many a pipe have I sought to smoke myself into oblivion--into an imaginary paradise where at least I might hope to dream of her who was lost to me. But did oblivion come--was Paradise opened? No, no! I was taken into hell--to suffer the tortures of the damned. My waking life was agony--my sleeping, pain everlasting; yet I could not tear myself away from the thing. It gained too strong a hold on me, and I am a slave to it even now--I confess it, a slave to Satan, to Apollyon, to Beelzebub. You know now why I go to London, and seek to deliver myself into the grip of those things which lie in darkness." In his agitation he rose and paced the floor, rent and torn by the devils which, as he said, and which Miriam, with the spectacle before her, was constrained to believe, possessed him. She remained silent, stunned almost by the outburst of this terrible nature--brutish, animal, horrible. It was as though the cold ground underfoot had opened to spout fire and destruction. Barton went on, "Do you know my fear, Miriam? It is that some day I shall kill some one. That is the gift that I inherit from my ancestors. A thousand times the impulse has seized me, but, so far, I have had the strength to hold me back. A wife--a good, fond, loving, tender wife, could have saved me from the tortures which that bloody instinct inflicts. She would have exorcised the devil within me. Of that, my only salvation, I was robbed by my sister. I hate her!" he hissed. "Flora, dead or alive, I curse you! I will ruin your son, as you ruined me, and when he dies a drunkard and an outcast, I shall laugh--yes, even though I am in hell, I shall laugh." Shaking his fists, the old man dropped into his chair, and burying his face in his hands, burst into tears. His paroxysm of anger had exhausted him, and he was now weak as a child.