"Give me the bottle of morphia you took from my pocket," he demanded, rising threateningly. "No words; you might as well read the Ten Commandments to an unchained tiger. Give it to me, or there is no telling what may happen. You talk as if I could stop by simply saying, coolly and quietly, I will stop. Ten thousand devils! haven't I suffered the torments of the damned in trying to stop! Was I not in hell for a week when I could not get it? Do you think I ask for it now as a child wants candy? No, it's the drop of water that will cool my tongue for a brief moment, and as you hope for mercy or have a grain of mercy in your nature, give it to me NOW, NOW, NOW!" The poor wife tottered a step or two toward her daughter's room, and fell swooning at the threshold. Mildred opened the door, and her deep pallor showed that instead of sleeping she had heard words that would leave scars on memory until her dying day. "The poison you demand is there," she said brokenly, pointing to her bureau. "After mamma's appeal I need not, cannot speak," and she knelt beside her mother. Her father rushed forward and seized the drug with the aspect of one who is famishing. Mildred shuddered, and would not see more than she could help, but gave her whole thought and effort to her mother, who seemed wounded unto death. After a few moments, to her unbounded surprise, her father knelt beside her and lifted her mother to a lounge, and, with a steady hand and a gentle, considerate manner, sought to aid in her restoration. His face was full of solicitude and anxiety--indeed he looked almost the same as he might have looked and acted a year ago, before he had ever imagined that such a demon would possess him. When at last Mrs. Jocelyn revived and recalled what had occurred, she passed into a condition of almost hysterical grief, for her nervous system was all unstrung. Mr. Jocelyn, meanwhile, attended upon her in a silent, gentle, self-possessed manner that puzzled Mildred greatly, although she ascribed it to the stimulant he had taken. After a few minutes a strange smile flitted across his face, and he disappeared within his own apartment. A little later, Mildred, returning from a momentary absence, saw him withdraw his syringe from the arm of her half-conscious mother. "What have you done?" she asked sternly, and hastening to his side. Secreting the instrument as a miser would his gold, he answered, with the same strange smile, "She shall have a merry Christmas yet; I have just remembered the day. See how quiet she is becoming; see that beautiful flush stealing into her pale face; see the light dawning in her eye. Oh, I gauged the dose with the skill of the best of them; and see, my hand is as steady as yours. I'm not a wreck yet, and all may still be well. Come, this is Christmas night, and we will keep it in good old Southern style. Where are Belle and the children? Ah! here they are. Where have you been, Belle?"