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