almost equally
unimportant.

"Oh, we ought not to come in!" Angela exclaimed involuntarily, on the
threshold of this secret.

The weary face faintly smiled, with a smile like a dim gleam of light
flickering over the features of a mummy.

"Come in. Many people come see me," said a voice as old as the eyes, and
sad with the fatal sadness that has forgotten hope. It was a very small,
weak voice, almost like a voice heard at the other end of a long-distance
telephone, and it spoke excellent English.

Silently Angela obeyed; and seeing a broken, cane-seated chair which she
had not noticed before, dropped into it as the low voice asked her to sit
down. She was not afraid now, but sadness gripped her.

"You wish see me smoke opium, lady?" the old man asked, his tone
monotonous, devoid of interest, his face a mask. The light of a tallow
candle flared into his eyes, and wavered over his egg-shaped head, which
was entirely bald save for its queue.

"Oh, no," Angela answered, horrified, "I beg you won't smoke for me!"

"Not for you," he said. "I smoke all times. I must now. If not, I suffer
too much. It is the smoking keeps me alive. I cannot eat, or only a
little. My throats shuts up. But when I smoke, for a few minutes after I
am happy. Then I wait a while, and bimeby I smoke again."

"Surely--surely--you can't smoke opium all day and all night?" Angela
murmured, her lips dry. She seemed to know what he felt, and to feel it
with him. It was a dreadful sensation, that physical knowledge, racking
her nerves like a phase of nightmare.

"Nearly all day and all night, for I do not sleep much; perhaps two hours
in twenty-four. Once, a long time ago, the opium made me sleep. I had nice
dreams. Now it makes me wide awake. But I do not suffer, only for a few
minutes. When it gets too bad, I begin again."

"What is it like--the suffering?" Angela half whispered.

"Cramps, and aching in my bones. Maybe you never had a toothache--you are
too young. But it is like that all over my body. I wish to die then. And I
will before long. The death will not hurt much if I keep on smoking. My
heart will stop, that is all. It will give me a chance to begin again."

"In another world--yes," said Angela. "But--couldn't you stop smoking?
Take medicine of some sort--have treatment from a doctor----"

"Too late, long time ago," he answered, with a calm, fatal smile. But his
eyes lit with a faint spark of anticipation, and his cheeks worked wit