Diary of a Drug Fiend

356 The Diary of a Drug Fiend you. I was ready to go to hell for you. I did go to hell for you. I came out of hell for you. I stopped taking heroin only because I had to fit myself to help you to do your will. That is my will. And when we found out this morning what your will was, I came down here to get the place ready for you to do it. I’m going to keep this place in order for you and assist you as best I can in your work, just as I danced for you, and went to McCall for you, in the days when you were blind. I was blind too about your will, but I always followed my instinct to do what you needed me for, even when we were poisoned and insane.” She spoke in low, calm tones, but she was trembling like a leaf. I didn’t know what to answer. The great- ness of her attitude abashed me. I felt with utmost bitterness the shame of having wronged so sublime a love, of having brought her into such infamy. “My God!” I said at last. ‘‘ What we owe to Big Lion |” She shook her head. ‘“‘'No,” she said, with a strange smile, ‘‘ we’ve helped him as much as he’s helped us—helped him to do his will. The secret of his power is that he doesn’t exist for himself. His force flows through him unhindered. You have not been yourself till this morning when you forgot yourself, forgot who you were, didn’t know who kissed you and brought you your breakfast.” She looked up with a slow half-shamefaced smile into my eyes. “And I lost you,” said I, “after tiffin, when I remembered myself and forgot my work. And all the time you were here helping me to do my work. And I didn’t understand.” We stood awhile in silence. Both our hearts were seething with suppressed necessity to speak. It was a long, long while before I found a word; and when it came, it was intense and calm and confident. “T love you.” Not all the concentration given by heroin, or the