From this time forward Heberdon, during his waking hours, was continuously under the influence of cocaine. With the caution natural to him, he carefully regulated the doses, so as to maintain an even simmer in his brain. To be sure, there were the black and hopeless moments of awakening in the morning, but he took care to have one of the little folded papers handy to his bedside. As long as he kept himself going with it he looked all right. Though the little flames were shooting up in his brain, he still appeared the correct and punctilious young lawyer that he had always been. He still promised himself, of course, to give it up as soon as he had his present business out of hand.
Cocaine applied balm to the searing recollection of that ghastly scene at the parsonage. By dint of reassuring
