For a few days Mildred looked as white and crushed as a broken lily, and then the reserve strength and courage of the girl began to reassert themselves. With a fortitude that was as heroic as it was simple and unostentatious, she resolutely faced the truth and resolved to do each day's duty, leaving the result in God's hands. With a miser's care she husbanded her strength, ate the most nourishing food they could afford, and rested every moment her duties permitted. The economy they were now compelled to practice amounted almost to daily privation. Belle and the children were often a little petulant over this change, Mrs. Jocelyn apathetic, but Mildred was inflexible. "We must not run in debt one penny," she would often remark with compressed lips. Although frequently unoccupied at the shop, she was nevertheless compelled to stand, and in spite of this cruel requirement she rallied slowly. Thanks, however, to her wise carefulness, she did gain steadily in her power to endure and to fight the hard battle of life. One of the saddest features of their trouble was the necessity of reticence and of suffering in silence. Their proud, sensitive spirits did not permit them to speak of their shame even to Mrs. Wheaton, and she respected their reserve. Indeed, among themselves they shrank from mentioning the sorrow that oppressed every waking moment and filled their dreams with woful imagery. Daring an absence of nearly two weeks Mr. Jocelyn occasionally wrote a line, saying that he was as well as they could expect, and that was all. Then he reappeared among them and began leading a desultory kind of life, coming and going in an aimless way, and giving but little account of himself. They saw with a deeper depression that he had not improved much, although apparently he had avoided any great excesses. Occasionally he gave Mildred a little money, but how it was obtained she did not know. It was well he was reticent, for had she known that it was often part of a small loan from some half-pitying friend of former days, and that it would never be repaid, she would not have used a penny of it. They were simply compelled to recognize the awful truth, that the husband and father was apparently a confirmed opium inebriate. At first they pleaded with him again and again, unable to understand how it was possible for him to continue in so fatal a course, but at last they despairingly desisted. He would at times weep almost hysterically, overwhelmed with remorse, and again storm in reckless anger and unreasoning fury. As in thousands of other homes wherein manhood and honor have been destroyed, they found no better resource than silent endurance. Under such inflictions resignation is impossible. For Mrs. Jocelyn and Mildred it was simply a daily martyrdom, but in her companionship with Roger, Belle had much to sustain, cheer, and even brighten her life.