PART I.

_TOLD BY PHILIP BRAND, M.D., LONDON._

I.

I wish I had the courage to begin this tale by turning to my professional visiting books, and, taking at random any month out of the last twenty years, give its record as a fair sample of my ordinary work. The dismal extract would tell you what a doctor's--I suppose I may say a successful doctor's--lot is, when his practice lies in a poor and densely-populated district of London. Dreary as such a beginning might be, it would perhaps allay some of the incredulity which this tale may probably provoke, as it would plainly show how little room there is for things imaginative or romantic in work so hard as mine, or among such grim realities of poverty, pain, and grief as those by which I have been surrounded. It would certainly make it appear extremely unlikely that I should have found time to imagine, much less to write, a romance or melodrama.

The truth is that when a man has toiled from nine o'clock in the morning until nine o'clock at night, such leisure as he can enjoy is precious to him, especially when even that short respite is liable to be broken in upon at any moment.

Still, in spite of the doleful picture I have drawn of what may be called "the daily grind," I begin this tale with the account of a holiday.

In the autumn of 1864 I turned my back with right good-will upon London streets, hospitals, and patients, and took my seat in the North Express. The first revolution of the wheels sent a thrill of delight through my jaded frame. A joyful sense of freedom came over me. I had really got away at last! Moreover, I had left no address behind me, so for three blessed weeks might roam an undisputed lord of myself. Three weeks were not very many to take out of the fifty-two, but they were all I could venture to give myself; for even at that time my practice, if not so lucrative as I could wish, was a large and increasing one. Having done a twelvemonth's hard work, I felt that no one in the kingdom could take his holiday with a conscience clearer than mine, so I lay back in a peculiarly contented frame of mind, and discounted the coming pleasures of my brief respite from labor.

There are many ways of passing a holiday--many places at which it may be spent; but after all, if you wish to enjoy it thoroughly there is but one royal rule to be followed. That is, simply to please yourself--go where you like, and mount the innocent holiday hobby which is dearest to your heart, let its name be botany, geology, entomology, conchology, venery, piscation, or what not. Then you will be happy, and return well braced up for the battle of life. I knew a city clerk with literary tastes, who invariably spent his annual fortnight among the mustiest tomes of the British Museum, and averred that his health was more benefited by so doing than if he had passed the time inhaling the freshest sea-breezes. I dare say he was right in his assertion.

Sketching has always been my favorite holiday pursuit. Poor as my drawings may be, nevertheless, as I turn them over in my portfolio, they bring to me at least vivid remembrances of many sweet and picturesque spots, happy days, and congenial companions. It was not for me to say anything of their actual merits, but they are dear to me for their associations.

This particular year I went to North Wales, and made Bettws-y-Coed my headquarters. I stayed at the Royal Oak, that well-known little inn dear to many an artist's heart, and teeming with reminiscences of famous men who have sojourned there times without number. It was here I made the acquaintance of the man with whose life the curious events here told are connected.

On the first day after my arrival at Bettws my appreciation of my liberty was so thorough, my appetite for the enjoyment of the beauties of nature so keen and insatiable, that I went so far and saw so much, that when I returned to the Royal Oak night had fallen and the hour of dinner had long passed by. I was, when my own meal was placed on the table, the only occupant of the coffee-room. Just then a young man entered, and ordered something to eat. The waiter knowing no doubt something of the frank _camaraderie_ which exists, or should exist, between the followers of the painter's craft, laid his cover at my table. The new-comer seated himself, gave me a pleasant smile and a nod, and in five minutes we were in full swing of conversation.

The moment my eyes fell upon the young man I had noticed how singularly handsome he was. Charles Carriston--for this I found afterwards to be his name--was about twenty-two years of age. He was tall, but slightly built; his whole bearing and figure being remarkably elegant and graceful. He looked even more than gentlemanly,--he looked distinguished. His face was pale, its features well-cut, straight, and regular. His forehead spoke of high intellectual qualities, and there was somewhat of that development over the eye-brows which phrenologists, I believe, consider as evidence of the possession of imagination. The general expression of his face was one of sadness, and its refined beauty was heightened by a pair of soft, dark, dreamy-looking eyes.

It only remains to add that, from his attire, I judged him to be an artist--a professional artist--to the backbone. In the course of conversation I told him how I had classified him. He smiled.

"I am only an amateur," he said; "an idle man, nothing more--and you?"

"Alas! I am a doctor."

"Then we shall not have to answer to each other for our sins in painting."

We talked on pleasantly until our bodily wants were satisfied. Then came that pleasant craving for tobacco, which after a good meal, is natural to a well-regulated digestion.

"Shall we go and smoke outside?" said Carriston. "The night is delicious."

We went out and sat on one of the wooden benches. As my new friend said, the night was delicious. There was scarcely a breath of air moving. The stars and the moon shone brightly, and the rush of the not far distant stream came to us with a soothing murmur. Near us were three or four jovial young artists. They were in merry mood; one of them had that day sold a picture to a tourist. We listened to their banter until, most likely growing thirsty, they re-entered the inn.

Carriston had said little since we had been out of doors. He smoked his cigar placidly and gazed up at the skies. With the white moonlight falling on his strikingly-beautiful face--the graceful pose into which he fell--he seemed to me the embodiment of poetry. He paid no heed to the merry talk or the artists, which so much amused me--indeed, I doubted if he heard their voices.

Yet he must have done so, for as soon as they had left us he came out of his reverie.

"It must be very nice," he said, "to have to make one's living by Art."

"Nice for those who can make livings by it," I answered.

"All can do that who are worth it. The day of neglected genius is gone by. Muller was the last sufferer, I think--and he died young."

"If you are so sanguine, why not try your own luck at it?"

"I would; but unfortunately I am a rich man."

I laughed at this misplaced regret. Then Carriston, in the most simple way, told me a good deal about himself. He was an orphan; an only child. He had already ample means; but fortune had still favors in store for him. At the death of his uncle, now an aged man, he must succeed to a large estate and a baronetcy. The natural, unaffected way in which he made these confidences, moreover made them not, I knew, from any wish to increase his importance in my eyes, greatly impressed me. By the time we parted for the night I had grown much interested in my new acquaintance--an interest not untinged by envy. Young, handsome, rich, free to come or go, work or play, as he listed! Happy Carriston!

II.

I am disposed to think that never before did a sincere friendship, one which was fated to last unbroken for years, ripen so quickly as that between Carriston and myself. As I now look back I find it hard to associate him with any, even a brief, period of time subsequent to our meeting, during which he was not my bosom friend. I forget whether our meeting at the same picturesque spot on the morning which followed our self-introduction was the result of accident or arrangement. Anyway, we spent the day together, and that day was the precursor of many passed in each other's society. Morning after morning we sallied forth to do our best to transfer the same bits of scenery to our sketching-blocks. Evening after evening we returned to dine side by side, and afterward to talk and smoke together, indoors or outdoors as the temperature advised or our wishes inclined.

Great friends we soon became--inseparable as long as my short holiday lasted. It was, perhaps, pleasant for each to work in company with an amateur like himself. Each could ask the other's opinion of the merits of the work done, and feel happy at the approval duly given. An artist's standard of excellence is too high for a non-professional. When he praises your work he praises it but as the work of an outsider. You feel that such commendation condemns it and disheartens you.

However, had Carriston cared to do so, I think he might have fearlessly submitted his productions to any conscientious critic. His drawings were immeasurably more artistic and powerful than mine. He had undoubtedly great talent, and I was much surprised to find that good as he was at landscape, he was even better at the figure. He could, with a firm, bold hand draw rapidly the most marvellous likenesses. So spirited and true were some of the studies he showed me, that I could without flattery advise him, provided he could finish as he began, to keep entirely to the higher branch of the art. I have now before me a series of outline faces drawn by him--many of them from memory; and as I look at them the original of each comes at once before my eyes.

From the very first I had been much interested in the young man, and as day by day went by, and the peculiarities of his character were revealed to me, my interest grew deeper and deeper. I flatter myself that I am a keen observer and skilful analyst of personal character, and until now fancied that to write a description of its component parts was an easy matter. Yet when I am put to the proof I find it no simple task to convey in words a proper idea of Charles Carriston's mental organization.

I soon discovered that he was, I may say, afflicted by a peculiarly sensitive nature. Although strong and apparently in good health, the very changes of the weather seemed to affect him almost to the same extent as they affect a flower. Sweet as his disposition always was, the tone of his mind, his spirits, his conversation, varied, as it were, with the atmosphere. He was full of imagination, and that imagination, always rich, was at times weird, even grotesquely weird. Not for one moment did he seem to doubt the stability of the wild theories he started, or the possibility of the poetical dreams he dreamed being realized. He had his faults, of course; he was hasty and impulsive; indeed to me one of the greatest charms about the boy was that, right or wrong, each word he spoke came straight from his heart.

So far as I could judge, the whole organization of his mind was too highly strung, too finely wrought for every-day use. A note of joy, of sorrow, even of pity vibrated through it too strongly for his comfort or well-being. As yet it had not been called upon to bear the test of love, and fortunately--I use the word advisedly--fortunately he was not, according to the usual significance of the word, a religious man, or I should have thought it not unlikely that some day he would fall a victim to that religious mania so well known to my professional brethren, and have developed hysteria or melancholia. He might even have fancied himself a messenger sent from heaven for the regeneration of mankind. From natures like Carriston's are prophets made.

In short, I may say that my exhaustive study of my new friend's character resulted in a certain amount of uneasiness as to his future--an uneasiness not entirely free from professional curiosity.

Although the smile came readily and frequently to his lips, the general bent of his disposition was sad, even despondent and morbid. And yet few young men's lives promised to be so pleasant as Charles Carriston's.

I was rallying him one day on his future rank and its responsibilities.

"You will, of course, be disgustingly rich?" I said.

Carriston sighed. "Yes, if I live long enough; but I don't suppose I shall."

"Why in the world shouldn't you? You look pale and thin, but are in capital health. Twelve long miles we have walked to-day--you never turned a hair."

Carriston made no reply. He seemed in deep thought.

"Your friends ought to look after you and get you a wife," I said.

"I have no friends," he said sadly. "No nearer relation than a cousin a good deal older than I am, who looks upon me as one who was born to rob him of what should be his."

"But by the law of primogeniture, so sacred to the upper ten thousand, he must know you are entitled to it."

"Yes; but for years and years I was always going to die. My life was not thought worth six months' purchase. All of a sudden I got well. Ever since then I have seemed, even to myself, a kind of interloper."

"It must be unpleasant to have a man longing for one's death. All the more reason you should marry, and put other lives between him and the title."

"I fancy I shall never marry," said Carriston, looking at me with his soft dark eyes. "You see, a boy who has waited for years expecting to die, doesn't grow up with exactly the same feelings as other people. I don't think I shall ever meet a woman I can care for enough to make my wife. No, I expect my cousin will be Sir Ralph yet."

I tried to laugh him out of his morbid ideas. "Those who live will see," I said. "Only promise to ask me to your wedding, and better still, if you live in town, appoint me your family doctor. It may prove the nucleus of that West End practice which it is the dream of every doctor to establish."

I have already alluded to the strange beauty of Carriston's dark eyes. As soon as companionship commenced between us those eyes became to me, from scientific reasons, objects of curiosity on account of the mysterious expression which at times I detected in them. Often and often they wore a look the like to which, I imagine, is found only in the eyes of a somnambulist--a look which one feels certain is intently fixed upon something, yet upon something beyond the range of one's own vision. During the first two or three days of our new-born intimacy, I found this eccentricity of Carriston's positively startling. When now and then I turned to him, and found him staring with all his might at nothing, my eyes were compelled to follow the direction in which his own were bent. It was at first impossible to divest one's self of the belief that something should be there to justify so fixed a gaze. However, as the rapid growth of our friendly intercourse soon showed me that he was a boy of most ardent poetic temperament--perhaps even more a poet than an artist--I laid at the door of the Muse these absent looks and recurring flights into vacancy.

We were at the Fairy Glen one morning, sketching, to the best of our ability, the swirling stream, the gray rocks, and the overhanging trees, the last just growing brilliant with autumnal tints. So beautiful was everything around that for a long time I worked, idled, or dreamed in contented silence. Carriston had set up his easel at some little distance from mine. At last I turned to see how his sketch was progressing. He had evidently fallen into one of his brown studies, and, apparently, a harder one than usual. His brush had fallen from his fingers, his features were immovable, and his strange dark eyes were absolutely riveted upon a large rock in front of him, at which he gazed as intently as if his hope of heaven depended upon seeing through it.

He seemed for the while oblivious to things mundane. A party of laughing, chattering, terrible tourist girls scrambled down the rugged steps, and one by one passed in front of him. Neither their presence nor the inquisitive glances they cast on his statuesque face roused him from his fit of abstraction. For a moment I wondered if the boy took opium or some other narcotic on the sly. Full of the thought I rose, crossed over to him, and laid my hand upon his shoulder. As he felt my touch he came to himself, and looked up at me in a dazed, inquiring way.

"Really, Carriston," I said, laughingly, "you must reserve your dreaming fits until we are in places where tourists do not congregate, or you will be thought a madman, or at least a poet."

He made no reply. He turned away from me impatiently, even rudely; then, picking up his brush, went on with his sketch. After awhile he seemed to recover from his pettishness, and we spent the remainder of the day as pleasantly as usual.

As we trudged home in the twilight, he said to me in an apologetic, almost penitent way,

"I hope I was not rude to you just now."

"When do you mean?" I asked, having almost forgotten the trivial incident.

"When you woke me from what you called my dreaming."

"Oh dear, no. You were not at all rude. If you had been, it was but the penalty due to my presumption. The flight of genius should be respected, not checked by a material hand."

"That is nonsense; I am not a genius, and you must forgive me for my rudeness," said Carriston simply.

After walking some distance in silence he spoke again. "I wish when you are with me you would try and stop me from getting into that state. It does me no good."

Seeing he was in earnest I promised to do my best, and was curious enough to ask him whither his thoughts wandered during those abstracted moments.

"I can scarcely tell you," he said. Presently he asked, speaking with hesitation, "I suppose you never feel that under certain circumstances--circumstances which you cannot explain--you might be able to see things which are invisible to others?"

"To see things. What things?"

"Things, as I said, which no one else can see. You must know there are people who possess this power."

"I know that certain people have asserted they possess what they call second-sight; but the assertion is too absurd to waste time in refuting."

"Yet," said Carriston dreamily, "I know that if I did not strive to avoid it some such power would come to me."

"You are too ridiculous, Carriston," I said. "Some people see what others don't because they have longer sight. You may, of course, imagine anything. But your eyes--handsome eyes they are, too--contain certain properties, known as humors and lenses, therefore in order to see--"

"Yes, yes," interrupted Carriston; "I know exactly all you are going to say. You, a man of science, ridicule everything which breaks what you are pleased to call the law of Nature. Yet take all the unaccountable tales told. Nine hundred and ninety-nine you expose to scorn or throw grave doubt upon, yet the thousandth rests on evidence which cannot be upset or disputed. The possibility of that one proves the possibility of all."

"Not at all; but enough for your argument," I said, amused at the boy's wild talk.

"You doctors," he continued with that delicious air of superiority so often assumed by laymen when they are in good health, "put too much to the credit of diseased imagination."

"No doubt; it's a convenient shelf on which to put a difficulty. But go on."

"The body is your province, yet you can't explain why a cataleptic patient should hear a watch tick when it is placed against his foot."

"Nor you; nor any one. But perhaps it may aid you to get rid of your rubbishing theories if I tell you that catalepsy, as you understand it, is a disease not known to us; in fact, it does not exist."

He seemed crestfallen at hearing this. "But what do you want to prove?" I asked. "What have you yourself seen?"

"Nothing, I tell you. And I pray I may never see anything."

After this he seemed inclined to shirk the subject, but I pinned him to it. I was really anxious to get at the true state of his mind. In answer to the leading questions with which I plied him, Carriston revealed an amount of superstition which seemed utterly childish and out of place beside the intellectual faculties which he undoubtedly possessed. So much so, that at last I felt more inclined to laugh at than to argue with him.

Yet I was not altogether amused by his talk. His wild arguments and wilder beliefs made me fancy there must be a weak spot somewhere in his brain--even made me fear lest his end might be madness. The thought made me sad; for, with the exception of the eccentricities which I have mentioned, I reckoned Carriston the pleasantest friend I had ever made. His amiable nature, his good looks, and perfect breeding had endeared the young man to me; so much so, that I resolved, during the remainder of the time we should spend together, to do all I could toward talking the nonsense out of him.

My efforts were unavailing. I kept a sharp lookout upon him, and let him fall into no more mysterious reveries; but the curious idea that he possessed, or could possess, some gift above human nature, was too firmly rooted to be displaced. On all other subjects he argued fairly and was open to reason. On this one point he was immovable. When I could get him to notice my attacks at all, his answer was:

"You doctors, clever as you are with the body, know as little of psychology as you did three thousand years ago."

When the time came for me to fold up my easel and return to the drudgery of life, I parted from Carriston with much regret. One of those solemn, but often broken, promises to join together next year in another sketching tour passed between us. Then I went back to London, and during the subsequent months, although I saw nothing of him, I often thought of my friend of the autumn.

III.

In the spring of 1865 I went down to Bournemouth to see, for the last time, an old friend who was dying of consumption. During a great part of the journey down I had for a travelling companion a well-dressed gentlemanly man of about forty years of age. We were alone in the compartment, and after interchanging some small civilities, such as the barter of newspapers, slid into conversation. My fellow-traveller seemed to be an intellectual man, and well posted up in the doings of the day. He talked fluently and easily on various topics, and judging by his talk must have moved in good society. Although I fancied his features bore traces of hard living and dissipation, he was not unprepossessing in appearance. The greatest faults in his face were the remarkable thinness of the lips, and his eyes being a shade closer together than one cares to see. With a casual acquaintance such peculiarities are of little moment, but for my part I should not choose for a friend one who possessed them without due trial and searching proof.

At this time the English public were much interested in an important will case which was then being tried. The reversion to a vast sum of money depended upon the testator's sanity or insanity. Like most other people we duly discussed the matter. I suppose, from some of my remarks, my companion understood that I was a doctor. He asked me a good many technical questions, and I described several curious cases of mania which had come under my notice. He seemed greatly interested in the subject.

"You must sometimes find it hard to say where sanity ends and insanity begins," he said thoughtfully.

"Yes. The boundary-line is in some instances hard to define. To give in such a dubious case an opinion which would satisfy myself I should want to have known the patient at the time he was considered quite sane."

"To mark the difference?"

"Exactly. And to know the bent of the character. For instance, there is a friend of mine. He was perfectly sane when last I saw him, but for all I know he may have made great progress the other way in the interval."

Then without mentioning names, dates, or places, I described Carriston's peculiar disposition to my intelligent listener. He heard me with rapt interest.

"You predict he will go mad?" he said.

"Certainly not. Unless anything unforeseen arises he will probably live and die as sane as you or I."

"Why do you fear for him, then?"

"For this reason. I think that any sudden emotion--violent grief, for instance--any unexpected and crushing blow--might at once disturb the balance of his mind. Let his life run on in an even groove, and all will be well with him."

My companion was silent for a few moments.

"Did you mention your friend's name?" he asked.

I laughed. "Doctors never give names when they quote cases."

At the next station my companion left the train. He bade me a polite adieu, and thanked me for the pleasure my conversation had given him. After wondering what station in life he occupied I dismissed him from my mind, as one who had crossed my path for a short time and would probably never cross it again.

Although I did not see Charles Carriston I received several letters from him during the course of the year. He had not forgotten our undertaking to pass my next holiday together. Early in the autumn, just as I was beginning to long with a passionate longing for open air and blue skies, a letter came from Carriston. He was now, he said, roughing it in the Western Highlands. He reminded me of last year's promise. Could I get away from work now? Would I join him? If I did not care to visit Scotland, would I suggest some other place where he could join me? Still, the scenery by which he was now surrounded was superb, and the accommodation he had secured, if not luxurious, fairly comfortable. He thought we could not do better. A postscript to his letter asked me to address him as Cecil Carr, not Charles Carriston. He had a reason for changing his name; a foolish reason I should no doubt call it. When we met he would let me know it.

This letter at once decided me to accept his invitation. In a week's time my arrangements for leave of absence were complete, and I was speeding northward in the highest spirits, and well equipped with everything necessary for my favorite holiday pursuit. I looked forward with the greatest pleasure to again meeting Carriston. I found him at Callendar waiting for me. The coach did not follow the route we were obliged to take in order to reach the somewhat unfrequented part of the country in which our tent was pitched, so my friend had secured the services of a primitive vehicle and a strong shaggy pony to bear us the remainder of the journey.

So soon as our first hearty greetings were over I proceeded to ascertain how the last year had treated Carriston. I was both delighted and astonished at the great change for the better which had taken place in his manner, no less than his appearance. He looked far more robust; he seemed happier, brighter; although more like ordinary humanity. Not only had he greeted me with almost boisterous glee, but during our drive through the wonderful scenery he was in the gayest of spirits and full of fun and anecdote. I congratulated him heartily upon the marked improvement in his health, both mentally and physically.

"Yes, I am much better," he said. "I followed a part of your advice; gave up moping, tried constant change of scene, interested myself in many more things. I am quite a different man."

"No supernatural visitations?" I asked, anxious to learn that his cure in that direction was complete.

His face fell. He hesitated a second before answering.

"No--not now," he said. "I fought against the strange feeling, and I believe have got rid of it--at least I hope so."

I said no more on the subject. Carriston plunged into a series of vivid and mimetic descriptions of the varieties of Scotch character which he had met with during his stay. He depicted his experiences so amusingly that I laughed heartily for many a mile.

"But why the change in your name?" I asked, when he paused for a moment in his merry talk.

He blushed, and looked rather ashamed. "I scarcely like to tell you; you will think my reason so absurd."

"Never mind. I don't judge you by the ordinary standard."

"Well, the fact is, my cousin is also in Scotland. I feared if I gave my true name at the hotel at which I stayed on my way here, he might perchance see it, and look me up in these wild regions."

"Well, and what if he did?"

"I can't tell you. I hate to know I feel like it. But I have always, perhaps without cause, been afraid of him; and this place is horribly lonely."

Now that I understood the meaning of his words, I thought the boy must be joking; but the grave look on his face showed he was never further from merriment.

"Why, Carriston!" I cried, "you are positively ridiculous about your cousin. You can't think the man wants to murder you?"

"I don't know what I think. I am saying things to you which I ought not to say; but every time I meet him I feel he hates me, and wishes me out of the world."

"Between wishing and doing there is a great difference. I dare say all this 's fancy on your part."

"Perhaps so. Any way, Cecil Carr is as good a name up here as Charles Carriston, so please humor my whim and say no more about it."

As it made no difference to me by what name he chose to call himself I dropped the subject. I knew of old that some of his strange prejudices were proof against anything I could do to remove them.

At last we reached our temporary abode. It was a substantial, low-built house, owned and inhabited by a thrifty middle-aged widow, who, although well-to-do so far as the simple ideas of her neighbors went, was nevertheless always willing to add to her resources by accommodating such stray tourists as wished to bury themselves for a day or two in solitude, or artists who, like ourselves, preferred to enjoy the beauties of Nature undisturbed by the usual ebbing and flowing stream of sightseers.

As Carriston asserted, the accommodation if homely was good enough for two single men; the fare was plentiful, and our rooms were the picture of cleanliness. After a cursory inspection I felt sure that I could for a few weeks make myself very happy in these quarters.

I had not been twenty-four hours in the house before I found out one reason for the great change for the better in Charles Carriston's demeanor; knew his step was lighter, his eye brighter, his voice gayer, and his whole bearing altered. Whether the reason was a subject of congratulation or not I could not as yet say.

The boy was in love; in love as only a passionate, romantic, imaginative nature can be; and even then only once in a lifetime. Heedless, headstrong, impulsive, and entirely his own master, he had given his very heart and soul into the keeping of a woman.

IV.

That a man of Carriston's rank, breeding and refinement should meet his fate within the walls of a lonely farm-house, beyond the Trossachs, seems incredible. One would scarcely expect to find among such humble surroundings a wife suitable to a man of his stamp. And yet when I saw the woman who had won him I neither wondered at the conquest nor did I blame him for weakness.

I made the great discovery on the morning after my arrival. Eager to taste the freshness of the morning air, I rose betimes and went for a short stroll. I returned, and whilst standing at the door of the house, was positively startled by the beauty of a girl who passed me and entered, as if she was a regular inhabitant of the place. Not a rosy Scotch lassie, such as one would expect to find indigenous to the soil; but a slim, graceful girl, with delicate classical features. A girl with a mass of knotted light hair, yet with the apparent anomaly, dark eyes, eyelashes, and eyebrows--a combination which, to my mind, makes a style of beauty rare, irresistible, and dangerous above all others. The features which filled the exquisite oval of her face were refined and faultless. Her complexion was pale, but its pallor in no way suggested anything save perfect health. To cut my enthusiastic description short, I may at once say it has never been my good fortune to cast my eyes on a lovelier creature than this young girl.

Although her dress was of the plainest and simplest description, no one could have mistaken her for a servant; and much as I admire the bonny, healthy Scotch country lassie, I felt sure that mountain air had never reared a being of this ethereally beautiful type. As she passed me I raised my hat instinctively. She gracefully bent her golden head, and bade me a quiet but unembarrassed good-morning. My eyes followed her until she vanished at the end of the dark passage which led to the back of the house.

Even during the brief glimpse I enjoyed of this fair unknown a strange idea occurred to me. There was a remarkable likeness between her delicate features and those, scarcely less delicate, of Carriston. This resemblance may have added to the interest the girl's appearance awoke in my mind. Any way I entered our sitting-room, and, a prey to curiosity, and perhaps, hunger, awaited with much impatience the appearance of Carriston--and breakfast.

The former arrived first. Generally speaking he was afoot long before I was, but this morning we had reversed the usual order of things. As soon as I saw him I cried,

"Carriston! tell me at once who is the lovely girl I met outside? An angel with dark eyes and golden hair. Is she staying here like ourselves?"

A look of pleasure flashed into his eyes--a look which pretty well told me everything. Nevertheless he answered as carelessly as if such lovely young women were as common to the mountain side as rocks and brambles.

"I expect you mean Miss Rowan; a niece of our worthy landlady. She lives with her."

"She cannot be Scotch, with such a face and eyes?"

"Half-and-half. Her father was called an Englishman; but was, I believe, of French extraction. They say the name was originally Rohan."

Carriston seemed to have made close inquiries as to Miss Rowan's parentage.

"But what brings her here?" I asked.

"She has nowhere else to go. Rowan was an artist. He married a sister of our hostess, and bore her away from her native land. Some years ago she died, leaving this one daughter. Last year the father died, penniless, they tell me, so the girl has since then lived with her only relative, her aunt."

"Well," I said, "as you seem to know all about her, you can introduce me by and by."

"With the greatest pleasure, if Miss Rowan permits," said Carriston. I was glad to hear him give the conditional promise with as much respect to the lady's wishes as if she had been a duchess.

Then, with the liberty a close friend may take, I drew toward me a portfolio, full, I presumed, of sketches of surrounding scenery. To my surprise Carriston jumped up hastily and snatched it from me. "They are too bad to look at," he said. As I struggled to regain possession, sundry strings broke, and, lo and behold! the floor was littered, not with delineations of rock, lake, and torrent, but with images of the young girl I had seen a few minutes before. Full face, profile, three quarter face, five, even seven eight face, all were there--each study perfectly executed by Carriston's clever pencil. I threw myself into a chair and laughed aloud, whilst the young man, blushing and discomforted, quickly huddled the portraits between the covers, just as a genuine Scotch lassie bore in the plentiful and, to me, very welcome breakfast.

Carriston did favor me with his company during the whole of that day; but, in spite of my having come to Scotland to enjoy his society, that day, from easily-guessed reasons, was the only one in which I had undisputed possession of my friend.

Of course I bantered him a great deal on the portfolio episode. He took it in good part, attempting little or no defence. Indeed, before night he had told me, with all a boy's fervor, how he had loved Madeline Rowan at first sight, how in the short space of time which had elapsed since that meeting he had wooed her and won her; how good and beautiful she was; how he worshipped her; how happy he felt; how, when I went south, he should accompany me; and, after making a few necessary arrangements, return at once and bear his bride away.

I could only listen to him, and congratulate him. It was not my place to act the elder, and advise him either for or against the marriage. Carriston had only himself to please, and, if he made a rash step, only himself to blame for the consequences. And why should I have dissuaded? I who, in two days, envied the boy's good fortune.

I saw a great deal of Madeline Rowan. How strange and out-of-place her name and face seemed amid our surroundings. If at first somewhat shy and retiring, she soon, if only for Carriston's sake, consented to look upon me as a friend, and talked to me freely and unreservedly. Then I found that her nature was as sweet as her face. Such a conquest did she make of me that, save for one chimerical reason, I should have felt quite certain that Carriston had chosen well, and would be happy in wedding the girl of his choice, heedless of her humble position in the world, and absence of fitting wealth. When once his wife, I felt sure that if he cared for her to win social success her looks and bearing would insure it, and from the great improvement which, as I have already said, I noticed in his health and spirits, I believed that his marriage would make his life longer, happier, and better.

Now for my objection, which seems almost a laughable one. I objected on the score of the extraordinary resemblance which, so far as a man may resemble a woman, existed between Charles Carriston and Madeline Rowan. The more I saw them together, the more I was struck by it. A stranger might well have taken them for twin brother and sister. The same delicate features, drawn in the same lines; the same soft, dark, dreamy eyes; even the same shaped heads. Comparing the two, it needed no phrenologist or physiognomist to tell you that where one excelled the other excelled; where one failed, the other was wanting. Now, could I have selected a wife for my friend, I would have chosen one with habits and constitution entirely different from his own. She should have been a bright, bustling woman, with lots of energy and common-sense--one who would have rattled him about and kept him going--not a lovely, dark-eyed, dreamy girl, who could for hours at a stretch make herself supremely happy if only sitting at her lover's feet and speaking no word. Yet they were a handsome couple, and never have I seen two people so utterly devoted to each other as those two seemed to be during those autumn days which I spent with them.

I soon had a clear proof of the closeness of their mental resemblance. One evening Carriston, Madeline, and I were sitting out-of-doors, watching the gray mist deepening in the valley at our feet. Two of the party were, of course, hand-in-hand, the third seated at a discreet distance--not so far away as to preclude conversation, but far enough off to be able to pretend that he saw and heard only what was intended for his eyes and ears.

How certain topics, which I would have avoided discussing with Carriston, were started I hardly remember. Probably some strange tale had been passed down from wilder and even more solitary regions than ours--some ridiculous tale of Highland superstition, no doubt embellished and augmented by each one who repeated it to his fellows. From her awed talk I soon found that Madeline Rowan, perhaps by reason of the Scotch blood in her veins, was as firm a believer in things visionary and beyond nature as ever Charles Carriston in his silliest moments could be. As soon as I could I stopped the talk, and the next day, finding the girl for a few minutes alone, told her plainly that subjects of this kind should be kept as far as possible from her future husband's thoughts. She promised obedience, with dreamy eyes which looked as far away and full of visions as Carriston's.

"By the by," I said, "has he ever spoken to you about seeing strange things?"

"Yes; he has hinted at it."

"And you believe him?"

"Of course I do; he told me so."

This was unanswerable. "A pretty pair they will make," I muttered, as Madeline slipped from me to welcome her lover who was approaching. "They will see ghosts in every corner, and goblins behind every curtain."

Nevertheless, the young people had no doubts about their coming bliss. Everything was going smoothly and pleasantly for them. Carriston had at once spoken to Madeline's aunt, and obtained the old Scotchwoman's ready consent to their union. I was rather vexed at his still keeping to his absurd whim, and concealing his true name. He said he was afraid of alarming her aunt by telling her he was passing under an _alias_, whilst if he gave Madeline his true reason for so doing she would be miserable. Moreover, I found he had formed the romantic plan of marrying her without telling her in what an enviable position she would be placed so far as worldly gear went. A kind of Lord Burleigh surprise no doubt commended itself to his imaginative brain.

The last day of my holiday came. I bade a long and sad farewell to lake and mountain, and, accompanied by Carriston, started for home. I did not see the parting proper between the young people--that was far too sacred a thing to be intruded upon--but even when that protracted affair was over, I waited many, many minutes whilst Carriston stood hand-in-hand with Madeline, comforting himself and her by reiterating "Only six weeks--six short weeks! And then--and then!" It was the girl who at last tore herself away, and then Carriston mounted reluctantly by my side on the rough vehicle.

From Edinburgh we travelled by the night train. The greater part of the way we had the compartment to ourselves. Carriston, as a lover will, talked of nothing but coming bliss and his plans for the future. After a while I grew quite weary of the monotony of the subject, and at last dozed off, and for some little time slept. The shrill whistle which told us a tunnel was at hand aroused me. My companion was sitting opposite to me, and as I glanced across at him my attention was arrested by the same strange intense look which I had on a previous occasion at Bettws-y-Coed noticed in his eyes--the same fixed stare--the same obliviousness to all that was passing. Remembering his request, I shook him, somewhat roughly, back to his senses. He regarded me for a moment vacantly, then said:

"Now I have found out what was wanting to make the power I told you of complete. I could see her if I wished."

"Of course you can see her--in your mind's eye. All lovers can do that."

"If I tried I could see her bodily--know exactly what she is doing." He spoke with an air of complete conviction.

"Then I hope, for the sake of modesty, you won't try. It is now nearly three o'clock. She ought to be in bed and asleep."

I spoke lightly, thinking it better to try and laugh him out of his folly. He took no notice of my sorry joke.

"No," he said, quietly, "I am not going to try. But I know now what was wanting. Love--such love as mine--such love as hers--makes the connecting link, and enables sight or some other sense to cross over space, and pass through every material obstacle."

"Look here, Carriston," I said seriously, "you are talking as a madman talks. I don't want to frighten you, but I am bound both as a doctor and your sincere friend to tell you that unless you cure yourself of these absurd delusions they will grow upon you, develop fresh forms, and you will probably end your days under restraint. Ask any doctor, he will tell you the same."

"Doctors are a clever race," answered my strange young friend, "but they don't know everything."

So saying he closed his eyes and appeared to sleep.

We parted upon reaching London. Many kind words and wishes passed between us, and I gave him some well-meant, and, I believed, needed warnings. He was going down to see his uncle, the baronet. Then he had some matters to arrange with his lawyers, and above all, had to select a residence for himself and his wife. He would, no doubt, be in London for a short time. If possible he would come and see me. Any way he would write and let me know the exact date of his approaching marriage. If I could manage to come to it, so much the better. If not he would try, as they passed through town, to bring his bride to pay me a flying and friendly visit. He left me in the best of spirits, and I went back to my patients and worked hard to make up lost ground, and counteract whatever errors had been committed by my substitute.

Some six weeks afterward--late at night--whilst I was deep in a new and clever treatise on zymotics, a man, haggard, wild, unshorn, and unkempt, rushed past my startled servant, and entered the room in which I sat. He threw himself into a chair, and I was horrified to recognize in the intruder my clever and brilliant friend, Charles Carriston!

V.

"The end has come sooner than I expected." These were the sad words I muttered to myself as waving my frightened servant away I closed the door, and stood alone with the supposed maniac. He rose and wrung my hand, then without a word sank back into his chair and buried his face in his hands. A sort of nervous trembling seemed to run through his frame. Deeply distressed I drew his hands from his face.

"Now, Carriston," I said, as firmly as I could, "look up, and tell me what all this means. Look up, I say, man, and speak to me."

He raised his eyes to mine, and kept them there, whilst a ghastly smile--a phantom humor--flickered across his white face. No doubt his native quickness told him what I suspected, so he looked me full and steadily in the face.

"No," he said, "not as you think. But let there be no mistake. Question me. Talk to me. Put me to any test. Satisfy yourself, once for all, that I am as sane as you are."

He spoke so rationally, his eyes met mine so unflinchingly, that I was rejoiced to know that my fears were as yet ungrounded. There was grief, excitement, want of rest in his appearance, but his general manner told me he was, as he said, as sane as I was.

"Thank heaven you can speak to me and look at me like this," I exclaimed.

"You are satisfied then?" he said.

"On this point, yes. Now tell me what is wrong?"

Now that he had set my doubts at rest his agitation and excitement seemed to return. He grasped my hand convulsively.

"Madeline!" he whispered; "Madeline--my love--she is gone."

"Gone!" I repeated. "Gone where?"

"She is gone, I say--stolen from me by some black-hearted traitor--perhaps forever. Who can tell?"

"But, Carriston, surely, in so short a time her love cannot have been won by another. If so, all I can say is--"

"What!" he shouted. "You have seen her! You in your wildest dreams to imagine that Madeline Rowan would leave me of her own free-will! No, sir; she has been stolen from me--entrapped--carried away--hidden. But I will find her, or I will kill the black-hearted villain who has done this."

He rose and paced the room. His face was distorted with rage. He clinched and unclinched his long slender hands.

"My dear fellow," I said; "you are talking riddles. Sit down and tell me calmly what has happened. But, first of all, as you look utterly worn out, I will ring for my man to get you some food."

"No," he said; "I want nothing. Weary I am, for I have been to Scotland and back as fast as man can travel. I reached London a short time ago, and after seeing one man have come straight to you, my only friend, for help--it may be for protection. But I have eaten and I have drank, knowing I must keep my health and strength."

However, I insisted on some wine being brought. He drank a glass, and then with a strange enforced calm, told me what had taken place. His tale was this:

After we had parted company on our return from Scotland, Carriston went down to the family seat in Oxfordshire, and informed his uncle of the impending change in his life. The baronet, an extremely old man, infirm and all but childish, troubled little about the matter. Every acre of his large property was strictly entailed, so his pleasure or displeasure could make but little alteration in his nephew's prospects. Still, he was the head of the family, and Carriston was in duty bound to make the important news known to him. The young man made no secret of his approaching marriage, so in a very short time every member of the family was aware that the heir and future head was about to ally himself to a nobody. Knowing nothing of Madeline Rowan's rare beauty and sweet nature Carriston's kinsmen and kinswomen were sparing with their congratulations. Indeed, Mr. Ralph Carriston, the cousin whose name was coupled with such absurd suspicions, went so far as to write a bitter, sarcastic letter, full of ironical felicitations. This, and Charles Carriston's haughty reply, did not make the affection between the cousins any stronger. Moreover, shortly afterward the younger man heard that inquiries were being made in the neighborhood of Madeline's home as to her position and parentage. Feeling sure that only his cousin Ralph could have had the curiosity to institute such inquiries, he wrote and thanked him for the keen interest he was manifesting in his future welfare, but begged that hereafter Mr. Carriston would apply to him direct for any information he wanted. The two men were now no longer on speaking terms.

Charles Carriston in his present frame of mind cared little whether his relatives wished to bless or forbid the banns. He was passionately in love, and at once set about making arrangements for a speedy marriage. Although Madeline was still ignorant of the exalted position held by her lover--although she came to him absolutely penniless--he was resolved in the matter of money to treat her as generously as he would have treated the most eligible damsel in the country. There were several legal questions to be set at rest concerning certain property he wished to settle upon her. This of course caused delay. As soon as they were adjusted to his own, or rather to his lawyer's satisfaction, he purposed going to Scotland and carrying away his beautiful bride. In the meantime he cast about for a residence.

Somewhat Bohemian in his nature, Carriston had no intention of settling down just yet to live the life of an ordinary moneyed Englishman. His intention was to take Madeline abroad for some months. He had fixed upon Cannes as a desirable place at which to winter, but having grown somewhat tired of hotel life, wished to rent a furnished house. He had received from an agent to whom he had been advised to apply the refusal of a house, which, from the glowing description given, seemed the one above all others he wanted. As an early decision was insisted upon, my impulsive young friend thought nothing of crossing the Channel and running down to the south of France to see, with his own eyes, that the much-lauded place was worthy of the fair being who was to be its temporary mistress.

He wrote to Madeline, and told her he was going from home for a few days. He said he should be travelling the greater part of the time, so it should be no use her writing to him until his return. He did not reveal the object of his journey. Were Madeline to know it was to choose a winter residence at Cannes she would be filled with amazement, and the innocent deception he was still keeping up would not be carried through to the romantic end which he pictured to himself.

The day before he started for France Madeline wrote that her aunt was very unwell, but said nothing as to her malady causing any alarm. Perhaps Carriston thought less about the old Scotch widow than her relationship and kindness to Miss Rowan merited. He started on his travels without any forebodings of evil.

His journey to Cannes and back was hurried; he wasted no time on the road, but was delayed for two days at the place itself before he could make final arrangements with the owner and the present occupier of the house. Thinking he was going to start every moment, he did not write to Madeline--at the rate at which he meant to return, a letter posted in England would reach her almost as quickly as if posted at Cannes.

He reached his home, which for the last few weeks had been Oxford, and found two letters waiting for him. The first, dated on the day he left England, was from Madeline. It told him that her aunt's illness had suddenly taken a fatal turn--that she had died that day, almost without warning. The second letter was anonymous.

It was written apparently by a woman, and advised Mr. Carr to look sharply after his lady-love or he would find himself left in the lurch. The writer would not be surprised to hear some fine day that she had eloped with a certain gentleman who should be nameless. This precious epistle, probably an emanation of feminine spite, Carriston treated as it deserved--he tore it up and threw the pieces to the wind.

But the thought of Madeline being alone at that lonely house troubled him greatly. The dead woman had no sons or daughters; all the anxiety and responsibility connected with her affairs would fall on the poor girl. The next day he threw himself into the Scotch Express and started for her far-away home.

On arriving there he found it occupied only by the rough farm servants. They seemed in a state of wonderment, and volubly questioned Carriston as to the whereabouts of Madeline. The question sent a chill of fear to his heart. He answered their questions by others, and soon learned all they had to communicate.

Little enough it was. On the morning after the old woman's funeral Madeline had gone to Callendar to ask the advice of an old friend of her aunt's as to what steps should now be taken. She had neither been to this friend, nor had she returned home. She had, however, sent a message that she must go to London at once, and would write from there. That was the last heard of her--all that was known about her.

Upon hearing this news Carriston became a prey to the acutest terror--an emotion which was quite inexplicable to the honest people, his informants. The girl had gone, but she had sent word whither she had gone. True, they did not know the reason for her departure, so sudden and without luggage of any description; true, she had not written as promised, but no doubt they would hear from her to-morrow. Carriston knew better. Without revealing the extent of his fears he flew back to Callendar. Inquiries at the railway station informed him that she had gone, or had purposed going, to London; but whether she ever reached it, or whether any trace of her could be found there, was at least a matter of doubt. No good could be gained by remaining in Scotland, so he travelled back at once to town, half-distracted, sleepless, and racking his brain to know where to look for her.

"She has been decoyed away," he said in conclusion. "She is hidden, imprisoned somewhere. And I know, as well as if he told me, who has done this thing. I can trace Ralph Carriston's cursed hand through it all."

I glanced at him askance. This morbid suspicion of his cousin amounted almost to monomania. He had told the tale of Madeline's disappearance clearly and tersely; but when he began to account for it his theory was a wild and untenable one. However much he suspected Ralph Carriston of longing to stand in his shoes, I could see no object for the crime of which he accused him, that of decoying away Madeline Rowan.

"But why should he have done this?" I asked. "To prevent your marriage? You are young; he must have foreseen that you would marry some day."

Carriston leaned toward me, and dropped his voice to a whisper.

"This is his reason," he said; "this is why I come to you. You are not the only one who has entirely misread my nature, and seen a strong tendency to insanity in it. Of course I know that you are all wrong, but I know that Ralph Carriston has stolen my love--stolen her because he thinks and hopes that her loss will drive me mad--perhaps drive me to kill myself. I went straight to him--I have just come from him. Brand, I tell you that when I taxed him with the crime--when I raved at him--when I threatened to tear the life out of him--his cold, wicked eyes leaped with joy. I heard him mutter between his teeth, 'Men have been put in strait-waistcoats for less than this.' Then I knew why he had done this. I curbed myself and left him. Most likely he will try to shut me up as a lunatic; but I count upon your protection--count upon your help to find my love."

That any man could be guilty of such a subtle refinement of crime as that of which he accused his cousin seemed to me, if not impossible, at least improbable. But as at present there was no doubt about my friend's sanity I promised my aid readily.

"And now," I said, "my dear boy, I won't hear another word to-night. Nothing can be done until to-morrow; then we will consult as to what steps should be taken. Drink this and go to bed; yes, you are as sane as I am, but, remember, insomnia soon drives the strongest man out of his senses."

I poured out an opiate. He drank it obediently. Before I left him for the night I saw him in bed and sleeping a heavy sleep.

VI.

The advantage to one who writes, not a tale of imagination, but a simple record of events, is this: He need not be bound by the recognized canons of the story-telling art--need not exercise his ingenuity to mislead his reader--need not suppress some things and lay undue stress on others to create mysteries to be cleared up at the end of the tale. Therefore, using the privilege of a plain narrator, I shall here give some account of what became of Miss Rowan, as, so far as I can remember, I heard it some time afterward from her own lips.

The old Scotchwoman's funeral over, and those friends who had been present departed, Madeline was left in the little farm-house alone, save for the presence of the two servants. Several kind bodies had offered to come and stay with her, but she had declined the offers. She was in no mood for company, and perhaps being of such a different race and breed, would not have found much comfort in the rough homely sympathy which was offered to her. She preferred being alone with her grief--grief which after all was bound to be much lightened by the thought of her own approaching happiness, for the day was drawing near when her lover would cross the border and bear his bonny bride away. She felt sure that she would not be long alone--that the moment Carriston heard of her aunt's death he would come to her assistance. In such a peaceful, God-fearing neighborhood she had no fear of being left without protection. Moreover, her position in the house was well-defined. The old woman, who was childless, had left her niece all of which she died possessed. So Madeline decided to wait quietly until she heard from her lover.

Still there were business matters to be attended to, and at the funeral Mr. Douglas, of Callendar, the executor under the will, had suggested that an early interview would be desirable. He offered to drive out to the little farm the next day, but Miss Rowan, who had to see to some feminine necessaries which could only be supplied by shops, decided that she would come to the town instead of troubling Mr. Douglas to drive so far out.

Madeline, in spite of the superstitious element in her character, was a brave girl, and in spite of her refined style of beauty, strong and healthy. Early hours were the rule in that humble home, so before seven o'clock in the morning she was ready to start on her drive to the little town. At first she thought of taking with her the boy who did the rough out-door work; but he was busy about something or other, and besides, was a garrulous lad who would be certain to chatter the whole way, and this morning Miss Rowan wanted no companions save her own mingled thoughts of sadness and joy. She knew every inch of the road; she feared no evil; she would be home again long before nightfall; the pony was quiet and sure-footed--so away went Madeline in the strong primitive vehicle on her lonely twelve miles' drive through the fair scenery.

She passed few people on the road. Indeed, she remembered meeting no one except one or two pedestrian tourists, who like sensible men were doing a portion of their day's task in the early morning. I have no doubt but Miss Rowan seemed to them a passing vision of loveliness.

But when she was a mile or two from Callendar, she saw a boy on a pony. The boy, who must have known her by sight, stopped and handed her a telegram. She had to pay several shillings for the delivery, or intended delivery of the message, so far from the station. The boy galloped away, congratulating himself on having been spared a long ride, and Miss Rowan tore open the envelope left in her hands.

The message was brief: "Mr. Carr is seriously ill. Come at once. You will be met in London."

Madeline did not scream or faint. She gave one low moan of pain, set her teeth, and with the face of one in a dream drove as quickly as she could to Callendar, straight to the railway station.

Fortunately, or rather unfortunately, she had money with her, so she did not waste time in going to Mr. Douglas. In spite of the crushing blow she had received the girl had all her wits about her. A train would start in ten minutes' time. She took her ticket, then found an idler outside the station, and paid him to take the pony and carriage back to the farm, with the message as repeated to Carriston.

The journey passed like a long dream. The girl could think of nothing but her lover, dying, dying--perhaps dead before she could reach him. The miles flew by unnoticed; twilight crept on; the carriage grew dark; at last--London at last! Miss Rowan stepped out on the broad platform, not knowing what to do or where to turn. Presently a tall well-dressed man came up to her, and removing his hat, addressed her by name. The promise as to her being met had been kept.

She clasped her hands. "Tell me--oh tell me, he is not dead," she cried.

"Mr. Carr is not dead. He is ill, very ill--delirious and calling for you."

"Where is he? Oh take me to him!"

"He is miles and miles from here--at a friend's house. I have been deputed to meet you and to accompany you, if you feel strong enough to continue the journey at once."

"Come," said Madeline. "Take me to him."

"Your luggage?" asked the gentleman.

"I have none. Come!"

"You must take some refreshment."

"I need nothing. Come!"

The gentleman glanced at his watch. "There is just time," he said. He called a cab, told the driver to go at top speed. They reached Paddington just in time to catch the mail.

During the drive across London Madeline asked many questions, and learned from her companion that Mr. Carr had been staying for a day or two at a friend's house in the west of England. That yesterday he had fallen from his horse and sustained such injuries that his life was despaired of. He had been continually calling for Madeline. They had found her address on a letter, and had telegraphed as soon as possible--for which act Miss Rowan thanked her companion with tears in her eyes.

Her conductor did not say much of his own accord, but in replying to her questions he was politely sympathetic. She thought of little outside the fearful picture which filled every corner of her brain, but from her conductor's manner received the impression that he was a medical adviser who had seen the sufferer, and assisted in the treatment of the case. She did not ask his name, nor did he reveal it.

At Paddington he placed her in a ladies' carriage and left her.

He was a smoker, he said. She wondered somewhat at this desertion. Then the train sped down West. At the large stations the gentleman came to her and offered her refreshments. Hunger seemed to have left her; but she accepted a cup of tea once or twice. At last sorrow, fatigue, and weakness produced by such a prolonged fast had their natural effect. With the tears still on her lashes the girl fell asleep, and must have slept for many miles: a sleep unbroken by stoppages at stations.

Her conductor at last aroused her. He stood at the door of the carriage. "We must get out here," he said. All the momentarily-forgotten anguish came back to her as she stood beside him on the almost unoccupied platform.

"Are we there at last?" she asked.

"I am sorry to say we have still a long drive; would you like to rest first?"

"No--no. Come on, if you please." She spoke with feverish eagerness.

The man bowed. "A carriage waits," he said.

Outside the station was a carriage of some sort, drawn by one horse, and driven by a man muffled up to the eyes. It was still night, but Madeline fancied dawn could not be far off. Her conductor opened the door of the carriage and waited for her to enter.

She paused. "Ask him--that man must know if--"

"I am most remiss," said the gentleman. He exchanged a few words with the driver, and coming back, told Madeline that Mr. Carr was still alive, sensible, and expecting her eagerly.

"Oh, please, please drive fast," said the poor girl, springing into the carriage. The gentleman seated himself beside her, and for a long time they drove on in silence. At last they stopped. The dawn was just glimmering. They alighted in front of a house. The door was open. Madeline entered swiftly. "Which way--which way?" she asked. She was too agitated to notice any surroundings; her one wish was to reach her lover.

"Allow me," said the conductor, passing her. "This way; please follow me." He went up a short flight of stairs, then paused, and opened a door quietly. He stood aside for the girl to enter. The room was dimly lit, and contained a bed with drawn curtains. Madeline flew past her travelling companion, and as she threw herself on her knees beside the bed upon which she expected to see the helpless and shattered form of the man she loved, heard, or fancied she heard, the door locked behind her.

VII.

Carriston slept on late into the next day. Knowing that every moment of bodily and mental rest was a precious boon to him, I left him undisturbed. He was still fast asleep when, about mid-day, a gentleman called upon me. He sent up no card, and I supposed he came to consult me professionally.

The moment he entered my room I recognized him. He was the thin-lipped, gentlemanly person whom I had met on my journey to Bournemouth last spring--the man who had seemed so much impressed by my views on insanity, and had manifested such interest in the description I had given--without mentioning any name--of Carriston's peculiar mind.

I should have at once claimed acquaintanceship with my visitor, but before I could speak he advanced, and apologized gracefully for his intrusion.

"You will forgive it," he added, "when I tell you my name is Ralph Carriston."

Remembering our chance conversation, the thought that, after all, Charles Carriston's wild suspicion was well-founded, flashed through me like lightning. My great hope was that my visitor might not remember my face as I remembered his. I bowed coldly but said nothing.

"I believe, Dr. Brand," he continued, "you have a young relative of mine at present staying with you?"

"Yes, Mr. Carriston is my guest," I answered. "We are old friends."

"Ah, I did not know that. I do not remember having heard him mention your name as a friend. But as it is so, no one knows better than you do the unfortunate state of his health. How do you find him to-day--violent?"

I pretended to ignore the man's meaning, and answered smilingly, "Violence is the last thing I should look for. He is tired out and exhausted by travel, and is in great distress. That, I believe, is the whole of his complaint."

"Yes, yes; to be sure, poor boy! His sweetheart has left him, or something. But as a doctor you must know that his mental condition is not quite what it should be. His friends are very anxious about him. They fear that a little restraint--temporary, I hope--must be put upon his actions. I called to ask your advice and aid."

"In what, Mr. Carriston?"

"In this. A young man can't be left free to go about threatening his friends' lives. I have brought Dr. Daley with me; you know him, of course. He is below in my carriage. I will call him up, with your permission. He could then see poor Charles, and the needful certificate could be signed by you two doctors."

"Mr. Carriston," I said decidedly, "let me tell you in the plainest words that your cousin is at present as fully in possession of his wits as you are. Dr. Daley, whoever he may be, could sign no certificate, and in our day no asylum would dare to keep Mr. Carriston within its walls."

An unpleasant sinister look crossed my listener's face, but his voice still remained bland and suave. "I am sorry to differ from you, Dr. Brand," he said, "but I know him better than you do. I have seen him as you have never yet seen him. Only last night he came to me in a frantic state. I expected every moment he would make a murderous attack on me."

"Perhaps he fancied he had some reasons for anger," I said.

Ralph Carriston looked at me with those cold eyes of which his cousin had spoken. "If the boy has succeeded in converting you to any of his delusions I can only say that doctors are more credulous than I fancied. But the question is not worth arguing. You decline to assist me, so I must do without you. Good-morning, Dr. Brand."

He left the room as gracefully as he had entered it. I remained in a state of doubt. It was curious that Ralph Carriston turned out to be the man whom I had met in the train; but the evidence offered by the coincidence was not enough to convict him of the crime of endeavoring to drive his cousin mad by such a far-fetched stratagem as the inveigling away of Madeline Rowan. Besides, even in wishing to prove Charles Carriston mad he had much to say on his side. Supposing him to be innocent of having abducted Madeline, Carriston's violent behavior on the preceding evening must have seemed very much like insanity. In spite of the aversion with which Ralph Carriston inspired me, I scarcely knew which side to believe.

Carriston still slept; so when I went out on my afternoon rounds I left a note, begging him to remain in the house until my return. Then I found him up, dressed, and looking much more like himself. When I entered, dinner was on the table; so not until that meal was over could we talk unrestrainedly upon the subject which was uppermost in both our minds.

As soon as we were alone I turned toward my guest. "And now," I said, "we must settle what to do. There seems to me to be but one course open. You have plenty of money, so your best plan is to engage skilled police assistance. Young ladies can't be spirited away like this without leaving a trace."

To my surprise Carriston flatly objected to this course. "No," he said, "I shall not go to the police. The man who took her away has placed her where no police can find her. I must find her myself."

"Find her yourself! Why, it may be months, years, before you do that! Good heavens, Carriston! She may be murdered, or worse--"

"I shall know if any further evil happens to her--then I shall kill Ralph Carriston."

"But you tell me you have no clew whatever to trace her by. Do talk plainly. Tell me all or nothing."

Carriston smiled very faintly. "No clew that you, at any rate, will believe in," he said. "But I know this much, she is a prisoner somewhere. She is unhappy, but not, as yet, ill-treated. Heavens! do you think if I did not know this I should keep my senses for an hour?"

"How can you possibly know it?"

"By that gift--that extra sense or whatever it is--which you deride. I knew it would come to me some day, but I little thought how I should welcome it. I know that in some way I shall find her by it. I tell you I have already seen her three times. I may see her again at any moment when the strange fit comes over me."

All this fantastic nonsense was spoken so simply and with such an air of conviction that once more my suspicions as to the state of his mind were aroused. In spite of the brave answers which I had given Mr. Ralph Carriston, I felt that common-sense was undeniably on his side.

"Tell me what you mean by your strange fit," I said, resolved to find out the nature of Carriston's fancies or hallucinations. "Is it a kind of trance you fall into?"

He seemed loath to give any information on the subject, but I pressed him for an answer.

"Yes," he said at last. "It must be a kind of trance. An indescribable feeling comes over me. I know that my eyes are fixed on some object--presently that object vanishes, and I see Madeline."

"How do you see her?"

"She seems to stand in a blurred circle of light as cast by a magic lantern. That is the only way that I can describe it. But her figure is plain and clear--she might be close to me. The carpet on which she stands I can see, the chair on which she sits, the table on which she leans her hand, anything she touches I can see; but no more. I have seen her talking. I knew she was entreating some one, but that some one was invisible. Yet, if she touched that person, the virtue of her touch would enable me to see him."

So far as I could see, Carriston's case appeared to be one of over-wrought, or unduly-stimulated imagination. His I had always considered to be a mind of the most peculiar construction. In his present state of love, grief, and suspense these hallucinations might come in the same way in which dreams come. For a little while I sat in silence, considering how I could best combat with and dispel his remarkable delusions. Before I had arrived at any decision I was called away to see a patient. I was but a short time engaged. Then I returned to Carriston, intending to continue my inquiries.

Upon re-entering the room I found him sitting, as I had left him--directly opposite to the door. His face was turned fully toward me, and I trembled as I caught sight of it. He was leaning forward; his hands on the table-cloth, his whole frame rigid, his eyes staring in one direction, yet, I knew, capable of seeing nothing that I could see. He seemed even oblivious to sound, for I entered the room and closed the door behind me without causing him to change look or position. The moment I saw the man I knew that he had been overtaken by what he called the strange fit.

My first impulse--a natural one--was to arouse him; but second thoughts told me that this was an opportunity for studying his disease which should not be lost--I felt that I could call it by no other name than disease--so I proceeded to make a systematic examination of his symptoms.

I leaned across the table; and, with my face about a foot from his, looked straight into his eyes. They betrayed no sign of recognition--no knowledge of my presence. I am ashamed to say I could not divest myself of the impression that they were looking through me. The pupils were greatly dilated. The lids were wide apart. I lighted a taper and held it before them, but could see no expansion of the iris. It was a case, I confess, entirely beyond my comprehension. I had no experience which might serve as a guide as to what was the best course to adopt. All I could do was to stand and watch carefully for any change.

Save for his regular breathing and a sort of convulsive twitching of his fingers, Carriston might have been a corpse or a statue. His face could scarcely grow paler than it had been before the attack. Altogether, it was an uncomfortable sight: a creepy sight--this motionless man, utterly regardless of all that went on around him, and seeing, or giving one the idea that he saw something far away. I sighed as I looked at the strange spectacle, and foresaw what the end must surely be. But although I longed for him to awake, I determined on this occasion to let the trance, or fit, run its full course, that I might notice in what manner and how soon consciousness returned.

I must have waited and watched some ten minutes--minutes which seemed to me interminable. At last I saw the lips quiver, the lids flicker once or twice, and eventually close wearily over the eyes. The unnatural tension of every muscle seemed to relax, and, sighing deeply, and apparently quite exhausted, Carriston sank back into his chair with beads of perspiration forming on his white brow. The fit was over.

In a moment I was at his side and forcing a glass of wine down his throat. He looked up at me and spoke. His voice was faint, but his words were quite collected.

"I have seen her again," he said. "She is well; but so unhappy. I saw her kneel down and pray. She stretched her beautiful arms out to me. And yet I know not where to look for her--my poor love! my poor love!"

I waited until I thought he had sufficiently recovered from his exhaustion to talk without injurious consequences. "Carriston," I said, "let me ask you one question: Are these trances or visions voluntary or not?"

He reflected for a few moments. "I can't quite tell you," he said; "or, rather, I would put in this way. I do not think I can exercise my power at will; but I can feel when the fit is coming on me, and, I believe, can if I choose stop myself from yielding to it."

"Very well. Now listen. Promise me you will fight against these seizures as much as you can. If you don't you will be raving mad in a month."

"I can't promise that," said Carriston, quietly. "See her at times I must, or I shall die. But I promise to yield as seldom as may be. I know, as well as you do, that the very exhaustion I now feel must be injurious to any one."

In truth, he looked utterly worn out. Very much dissatisfied with his concession, the best I could get from him, I sent him to bed, knowing that natural rest, if he could get it, would do more than anything else toward restoring a healthy tone to his mind.

VIII.

Although Carriston stated that he came to me for aid, and, it may be, for protection, he manifested the greatest reluctance in following any advice I offered him. The obstinacy of his refusal to obtain the assistance of the police placed me in a predicament. That Madeline Rowan had really disappeared I was, of course, compelled to believe. It might even be possible that she was kept against her will in some place of concealment. In such a case it behooved us to take proper steps to trace her. Her welfare should not depend upon the hallucinations and eccentric ideas of a man half out of his senses with love and grief. I all but resolved, even at the risk of forfeiting Carriston's friendship, to put the whole matter in the hands of the police, unless in the course of a day or two we heard from the girl herself, or Carriston suggested some better plan.

Curiously enough, although refusing to be guided by me, he made no suggestion on his own account. He was racked by fear and suspense, yet his only idea of solving difficulties seemed to be that of waiting. He did nothing. He simply waited, as if he expected that chance would bring what he should have been searching for high and low.

Some days passed before I could get a tardy consent that aid should be sought. Even then he would not go to the proper quarter; but he allowed me to summon to our councils a man who advertised himself as being a private detective. This man, or one of his men, came at our call, and heard what was wanted of him. Carriston reluctantly gave him one of Madeline's photographs. He also told him that only by watching and spying on Ralph Carriston's every action could he hope to obtain the clew. I did not much like the course adopted, nor did I like the look of the man to whom the inquiry was intrusted; but at any rate something was being done.

A week passed without any news from our agent. Carriston, in truth, did not seem to expect any. I believe he only employed the man in deference to my wishes. He moved about the house in a disconsolate fashion. I had not told him of my interview with his cousin, but had cautioned him on the rare occasions upon which he went out of doors to avoid speaking to strangers, and my servants had strict instructions to prevent any one coming in and taking my guest by surprise.

For I had during those days opened a confidential inquiry on my own account. I wanted to learn something about this Mr. Ralph Carriston. So I asked a man who knew everybody to find out all about him.

He reported that Ralph Carriston was a man well known about London. He was married and had a house in Dorsetshire; but the greater part of his time was spent in town. Once he was supposed to be well-off; but now it was the general opinion that every acre he owned was mortgaged, and that he was much pressed for money. "But," my informant said, "there is but one life between him and the reversion to large estates, and that life is a poor one. I believe even now there is talk about the man who stands in his way being mad. If so, Ralph Carriston will get the management of everything."

After this news I felt it more than ever needful to keep a watchful eye on my friend. So far as I knew there had been no recurrence of the trance, and I began to hope that proper treatment would effect a complete cure, when, to my great alarm and annoyance, Carriston, while sitting with me, suddenly and without warning fell into the same strange state of body and mind as previously described. This time he was sitting in another part of the room. After watching him for a minute or two, and just as I was making up my mind to arouse him and scold him thoroughly for his folly, he sprung to his feet, and shouting, "Let her go! Loose her, I say!" rushed violently across the room--so violently, that I had barely time to interpose and prevent him from coming into contact with the opposite wall.

Upon returning to his senses he told me, with great excitement, that he had again seen Madeline; moreover, this time he had seen a man with her--a man who had placed his hand upon her wrist and kept it there; and so, according to Carriston's wild reasoning, became, on account of the contact, visible to him.

He told me he had watched them for some moments, until the man, tightening his grip on the girl's arm, endeavored, he thought, to lead her or induce her to follow him somewhere. At this juncture, unaware that he was gazing at a vision, he had rushed to her assistance in the frantic way I have described--then he awoke.

He also told me he had studied the man's features and general appearance most carefully with a view to future recognition. All these ridiculous statements were made as he made the former ones, with the air of one relating simple, undeniable facts--one speaking the plain, unvarnished truth, and expecting full credence to be given to his words.

It was too absurd! too sad! It was evident to me that the barrier between his hallucinations, dreams, visions, or what he chose to call them, and pure insanity, was now a very slight and fragile one. But before I gave up his case as hopeless I determined to make another strong appeal to his common-sense. I told him of his cousin's visit to me--of his intentions and proposition. I begged him to consider what consequences his extraordinary beliefs and extravagant actions must eventually entail. He listened attentively and calmly.

"You see now," he said, "how right I was in attributing all this to Ralph Carriston--how right I was to come to you, a doctor of standing, who can vouch for my sanity."

"Vouch for your sanity! How can I when you sit here and talk such arrant nonsense, and expect me to believe it? When you jump from your chair and rush madly at some visionary foe? Sane as you may be in all else, any evidence I could give in your favor must break down in cross-examination if an inkling of these things got about. Come, Carriston, be reasonable, and prove your sanity by setting about this search for Miss Rowan in a proper way."

He made no reply, but walked up and down the room apparently in deep thought. My words seemed to have had no effect upon him. Presently he seated himself; and, as if to avoid returning to the argument, drew a book at hazard from my shelves and began to read. He opened the volume at random, but after reading a few lines seemed struck by something that met his eyes, and in a few minutes was deeply immersed in the contents of the book. I glanced at it to see what had so awakened his interest. By a curious fatality he had chosen a book the very worst for him in his present frame of mind--Gilchrist's recently published life of William Blake, that masterly memoir of a man who was on certain points as mad as Carriston himself. I was about to remonstrate, when he laid down the volume and turned to me.

"Varley, the painter," he said, "was a firm believer in Blake's visions."

"Varley was a bigger fool than Blake," I retorted. "Fancy his sitting down and watching his clever but mad friend draw spectral heads, and believing them to be genuine portraits of dead kings whose forms condescended to appear to Blake!"

A sudden thought seemed to strike Carriston. "Will you give me some paper and chalk?" he asked. Upon being furnished with these materials he seated himself at the table and began to draw. At least a dozen times he sketched, with his usual rapidity, some object or another, and a dozen times, after a moment's consideration, threw each sketch aside with an air of disappointment and began a fresh one. At last one of his attempts seemed to come up to his requirements. "I have it now, exactly!" he cried with joy--even triumph--in his voice. He spent some time in putting finishing touches to the successful sketch, then he handed me the paper.

"That is the man I saw just now with Madeline," he said. "When I find him I shall find her." He spoke with all sincerity and conviction. I looked at the paper with, I am bound to say, a great amount of curiosity.

No matter from what visionary source Carriston had drawn his inspiration, his sketch was vigorous and natural enough. I have already mentioned his wonderful power of drawing portraits from memory, so was willing to grant that he might have reproduced the outline of some face which had somewhere struck him. Yet why should it have been this one? His drawing represented the three quarter face of a man--an ordinary man--apparently between forty and fifty years of age. It was a coarse-featured, ill-favored face, with a ragged ruff of hair round the chin. It was not the face of a gentleman, nor even the face of a gentle-nurtured man; and the artist, by a few cunning strokes, had made it wear a crafty and sullen look. The sketch, as I write this, lies before me, so that I am not speaking from memory.

Now, there are some portraits of which, without having seen the original, we say, "What splendid likenesses these must be." It was so with Carriston's sketch. Looking at it you felt sure it was exactly like the man whom it was intended to represent. So that, with the certain amount of art knowledge which I am at least supposed to possess, it was hard for me, after examining the drawing and recognizing the true artist's touch in every line, to bring myself to accept the fact that it was but the outcome of a diseased imagination. As, at this very moment, I glance at that drawing, I scarcely blame myself for the question that faintly frames itself in my innermost heart. "Could it be possible--could there be in certain organizations powers not yet known--not yet properly investigated?"

My thought, supposing such a thought was ever there--was not discouraged by Carriston, who, speaking as if his faith in the bodily existence of the man whose portrait lay in my hand was unassailable, said,

"I noticed that his general appearance was that of a countryman--an English peasant; so in the country I shall find my love. Moreover, it will be easy to identify the man, as the top joint is missing from the middle finger of his right hand. As it lay on Madeline's arm I noticed that."

I argued with him no more. I felt that words would be but wasted.

IX.

A day or two after I had witnessed what I must call Carriston's second seizure we were favored with a visit from the man whose services we had secured to trace Madeline. Since he had received his instructions we had heard nothing of his proceeding until he now called to report progress in person. Carriston had not expressed the slightest curiosity as to where the man was or what he was about. Probably he looked upon the employment of this private detective as nothing more useful than a salve to my conscience. That Madeline was only to be found through the power which he professed to hold of seeing her in his visions was, I felt certain, becoming a rooted belief of his. Whenever I expressed my surprise that our agent had brought or sent no information, Carriston shrugged his shoulders, and assured me that from the first he knew the man's researches would be fruitless. However, the fellow had called at last, and, I hoped, had brought us good news.

He was a glib-tongued man, who spoke in a confident, matter-of-fact way. When he saw us he rubbed his hands as one who had brought affairs to a successful issue, and now meant to reap praise and other rewards. His whole bearing told me he had made an important discovery; so I begged him to be seated, and give us his news.

Carriston gave him a careless glance, and stood at some little distance from us. He looked as if he thought the impending communication scarcely worth the trouble of listening to. He might, indeed, from his looks, have been the most disinterested person of the three. He even left me to do the questioning.

"Now, then, Mr. Sharpe," I said, "let us hear if you have earned your money."

"I think so, sir," replied Sharpe, looking curiously at Carriston, who, strange to say, heard this answer with supreme indifference.

"I think I may say I have, sir," continued the detective--"that is if the gentlemen can identify these articles as being the young lady's property."

Thereupon he produced from a thick letter-case a ribbon in which was stuck a silver pin, mounted with Scotch pebbles, an ornament that I remembered having seen Madeline wear. Mr. Sharpe handed them to Carriston. He examined them, and I saw his cheeks flush and his eyes grow bright.

"How did you come by this?" he cried, pointing to the silver ornament.

"I'll tell you presently, sir. Do you recognize it?"

"I gave it to Miss Rowan myself."

"Then we are on the right track," I cried, joyfully. "Go on, Mr. Sharpe."

"Yes, gentlemen, we are certainly on the right track; but after all, it isn't my fault if the track don't lead exactly where you wish. You see, when I heard of this mysterious disappearance of the lady, I began to concoct my own theory. I said to myself, when a young and beautiful--"

"Confound your theories!" cried Carriston fiercely. "Go on with your tale."

The man gave his interrupter a spiteful glance. "Well, sir," he said, "as you gave me strict instructions to watch a certain gentleman closely, I obeyed those instructions, of course, although I knew I was on a fool's errand."

"Will you go on?" cried Carriston. "If you know where Miss Rowan is, say so; your money will be paid you the moment I find her."

"I don't say I exactly know where to find the lady, but I can soon know if you wish me to."

"Tell your tale your own way, but as shortly as possible," I said, seeing that my excitable friend was preparing for another outburst.

"I found there was nothing to be gained by keeping watch on the gentleman you mentioned, sir, so I went to Scotland and tried back from there. As soon as I worked on my own lay I found out all about it. The lady went from Callendar to Edinburgh, from Edinburgh to London, from London to Folkestone, and from Folkestone to Boulong."

I glanced at Carriston. All his calmness seemed to have returned. He was leaning against the mantelpiece, and appeared quite unmoved by Mr. Sharpe's clear statement as to the route Madeline had taken.

"Of course," continued Mr. Sharpe, "I was not quite certain I was tracking the right person, although her description corresponded with the likeness you gave me. But as you are sure this article of jewelry belonged to the lady you want, the matter is beyond a doubt."

"Of course," I said, seeing that Carriston had no intention of speaking. "Where did you find it?"

"It was left behind, in a bedroom of one of the principal hotels in Folkestone. I did go over to Boulong, but after that I thought I had learned all you would care to know."

There was something in the man's manner which made me dread what was coming. Again I looked at Carriston. His lips were curved with contempt, but he still kept silence.

"Why not have pursued your inquiries past Boulong?" I asked.

"For this reason, sir. I had learned enough. The theory I had concocted was the right one after all. The lady went to Edinburgh alone, right enough: but she didn't leave Edinburgh alone, nor she didn't leave London alone, nor she didn't stay at Folkestone--where I found the pin--alone, nor she didn't go to Boulong alone. She was accompanied by a young gentleman who called himself Mr. Smith; and what's more, she called herself Mrs. Smith. Perhaps she was; as they lived like man and wife."

Whether the fellow was right or mistaken, this explanation of Madeline's disappearance seemed to give me what I can only compare to a smack in the face. I stared at the speaker in speechless astonishment. If the tale he told so glibly and circumstantially was true, farewell, so far as I was concerned, to belief in the love or purity of women. Madeline Rowan, that creature of a poet's dream, on the eve of her marriage with Charles Carriston to fly, whether wed or unwed mattered little, with another man! And yet, she was but a woman. Carriston--or Carr, as she only knew him--was in her eyes poor. The companion of her flight might have won her with gold. Such things have been. Still--

My rapid and wrongful meditations were cut short in an unexpected way. Suddenly I saw Mr. Sharpe dragged bodily out of his chair and thrown on the floor, while Carriston, standing over him, thrashed the man vigorously with his own ash stick--a convenient weapon, so convenient that I felt Mr. Sharpe could not have selected a stick more appropriate for his own chastisement. So Carriston seemed to think, for he laid on cheerfully some eight or ten good cutting strokes.

Nevertheless, being a respectable doctor and a man of peace, I was compelled to interfere. I held Carriston's arm while Mr. Sharpe struggled to his feet, and after collecting his hat and his pocket-book, stood glaring vengefully at his assailant, and rubbing the while such of the weals on his back as he could reach. Annoyed as I felt at the unprofessional _fracas_, I could scarcely help laughing at the man's appearance. I doubt the possibility of any one looking heroic after such a thrashing.

"I'll have the law for this," he growled. "I ain't paid to be beaten by a madman."

"You're paid to do my work, not another's," said Carriston. "Go to the man who has over-bribed you and sent you to tell me your lies. Go to him, tell him that once more he has failed. Out of my sight."

As Carriston showed signs of recommencing hostile operations, the man flew as far as the door-way. There, being in comparative safety, he turned with a malignant look.

"You'll smart for this," he said; "when they lock you up as a raving lunatic I'll try and get a post as keeper."

I was glad to see that Carriston paid no attention to this parting shaft. He turned his back scornfully, and the fellow left the room and the house.

"Now are you convinced?" asked Carriston, turning to me.

"Convinced of what? That his tale is untrue, or that he has been misled, I am quite certain."

"Tush! That is not worth consideration. Don't you see that Ralph has done all this? I set that man to watch him; he found out the espionage; suborned my agent, or your agent, I should say; sent him here with a trumped-up tale. Oh, yes; I was to believe that Madeline had deserted me--that was to drive me out of my senses. My cousin is a fool after all!"

"Without further proof I cannot believe that your suspicions are correct," I said; but I must own I spoke with some hesitation.

"Proof! A clever man like you ought to see ample proof in the fact of that wretch having twice called me a madman. I have seen him but once before--you know if I then gave him any grounds for making such an assertion. Tell me, from whom could he have learned the word except from Ralph Carriston?"

I was bound, if only to save my own reputation for sagacity, to confess that the point noted by Carriston had raised certain doubts in my mind. But if Ralph Carriston really was trying by some finely-wrought scheme to bring about what he desired, there was all the more reason for great caution to be exercised.

"I am sorry you beat him," I said. "He will now swear right and left that you are not in your senses."

"Of course he will. What do I care?"

"Only remember this. It is easier to get put into an asylum than to get out of it."

"It is not so very easy for a sane man like myself to be put in, especially when he is on his guard. I have looked up the law. There must be a certificate signed by two doctors, surgeons--or, I believe, apothecaries will do--who have seen the supposed lunatic alone and together. I'll take very good care I speak to no doctor save yourself, and keep out of the way of surgeons and apothecaries."

It quite cheered me to hear him speaking so sensibly and collectedly about himself, but I again impressed upon him the need of great caution. Although I could not believe that his cousin had taken Madeline away, I was inclined to think, after the affair with the spy, that, as Carriston averred, he aimed at getting him, sane or insane, into a mad-house.

But after all these days we were not a step nearer to the discovery of Madeline's whereabouts. Carriston made no sign of doing anything to facilitate that discovery. Again I urged him to intrust the whole affair to the police. Again he refused to do so, adding that he was not quite ready. Ready for what, I wondered!

X.

I must confess, in spite of my affection for Carriston, I felt inclined to rebel against the course which matters were taking. I was a prosaic matter-of-fact medical man; doing my work to the best of my ability and anxious when that work was done that my hours of leisure should be as free from worry and care as possible. With Carriston's advent several disturbing elements entered into my quiet life.

Let Ralph Carriston be guilty or innocent of the extraordinary crime which his cousin laid at his door, I felt that he was anxious to obtain possession of the supposed lunatic's person. It would suit his purposes for his cousin to be proved mad. I did not believe that even if the capture was legally effected Carriston's liberation would be a matter of great difficulty so long as he remained in his present state of mind; so long as I, a doctor of some standing, could go into the witness-box and swear to his sanity. But my old dread was always with me--the dread that any further shock would overturn the balance of his sensitive mind.

So it was that every hour that Carriston was out of my sight was fraught with anxiety. If Ralph Carriston was really as unscrupulous as my friend supposed; if he had really, as seemed almost probable, suborned our agent; he might by some crafty trick obtain the needful certificate, and some day I should come home and find Carriston had been removed. In such a case I foresaw great trouble and distress.

Besides, after all that had occurred, it was as much as I could do to believe that Carriston was not mad. Any doctor who knew what I knew would have given the verdict against him.

After dismissing his visions and hallucinations with the contempt which they deserved, the fact of a man who was madly, passionately in love with a woman, and who believed that she had been entrapped and was still kept in restraint, sitting down quietly, and letting day after day pass without making an effort toward finding her, was in itself _prima facie_ evidence of insanity. A sane man would at once have set all the engines of detection at work.

I felt that if once Ralph Carriston obtained possession of him he could make out a strong case in his own favor. First of all, the proposed marriage out of the defendant's own sphere of life; the passing under a false name; the ridiculous, or apparently ridiculous, accusation made against his kinsman; the murderous threats; the chastisement of his own paid agent who brought him a report which might not seem at all untrue to any one who knew not Madeline Rowan. Leaving out the question what might be wrung from me in cross-examination, Ralph Carriston had a strong case, and I knew that, once in his power, my friend might possibly be doomed to pass years, if not his whole life, under restraint. So I was anxious--very anxious.

And I felt an anxiety, scarcely second to that which prevailed on Carriston's account, as to the fate of Madeline. Granting for sake of argument that Carriston's absurd conviction that no bodily harm had as yet been done her, was true, I felt sure that she with her scarcely less sensitive nature must feel the separation from her lover as much as he himself felt the separation from her. Once or twice I tried to comfort myself with cynicism--tried to persuade myself that a young woman could not in our days be spirited away--that she had gone by her own free-will--that there was a man who had at the eleventh hour alienated her affections from Carriston. But I could not bring myself to believe this. So I was placed between the horns of a dilemma.

If Madeline had not fled of her own free-will, some one must have taken her away, and if so our agent's report was a coined one, and, if a coined one, issued at Ralph's instance; therefore Ralph must be the prime actor in the mystery.

But in sober moments such a deduction seemed an utter absurdity.

Although I have said that Carriston was doing nothing toward clearing up the mystery, I wronged him in so saying. After his own erratic way he was at work. At such work too! I really lost all patience with him.

He shut himself up in his room, out of which he scarcely stirred for three days. By that time he had completed a large and beautiful drawing of his imaginary man. This he took to a well-known photographer's, and ordered several hundred small photographs of it, to be prepared as soon as possible. The minute description which he had given me of his fanciful creation was printed at the foot of each copy. As soon as the first batch of these precious photographs was sent home, to my great joy he did what he should have done days ago; yielded to my wishes, and put the matter into the hands of the police.

I was glad to find that in giving details of what had happened he said nothing about the advisability of keeping a watch on Ralph Carriston's proceedings. He did, indeed, offer an absurdly large reward for the discovery of the missing girl; and, moreover, gave the officer in charge of the case a packet of photographs of his phantom man, telling him in the gravest manner that he knew the original of that likeness had something to do with the disappearance of Miss Rowan. The officer, who thought the portrait was that of a natural being, took his instructions in good faith, although he seemed greatly surprised when he heard that Carriston knew neither the name nor the occupation, in fact, knew nothing concerning the man who was to be sought for. However, as Carriston assured him that finding this man would insure the reward as much as if he found Madeline, the officer readily promised to combine the two tasks, little knowing what waste of time any attempt to perform the latter must be.

Two days after this Carriston came to me. "I shall leave you to-morrow," he said.

"Where are you going?" I asked. "Why do you leave?"

"I am going to travel about. I have no intention of letting Ralph get hold of me. So I mean to go from place to place until I find Madeline."

"Be careful," I urged.

"I shall be careful enough. I'll take care that no doctors, surgeons, or even apothecaries get on my track. I shall go just as the fit seizes me. If I can't say one day where I shall be the next, it will be impossible for that villain to know."

This was not a bad argument. In fact, if he carried out his resolve of passing quickly from place to place I did not see how he could plan anything more likely to defeat the intentions with which we credited his cousin. As to his finding Madeline by so doing, that was another matter.

His idea seemed to be that chance would sooner or later bring him in contact with the man of his dream. However, now that the search had been intrusted to the proper persons his own action in the matter was not worth troubling about. I gave him many cautions. He was to be quiet and guarded in words and manner. He was not to converse with strangers. If he found himself dogged or watched by any one he was to communicate at once with me. But, above all, I begged him not to yield again to his mental infirmity. The folly of a man who could avoid it, throwing himself into such a state ought to be apparent to him.

"Not oftener than I can help," was all the promise I could get from him. "But see her I must sometimes, or I shall die."

I had now given up as hopeless the combat with his peculiar idiosyncrasy. So, with many expressions of gratitude on his part, we bade each other farewell.

During his absence he wrote to me nearly every day, so that I might know his whereabouts in case I had any news to communicate. But I had none. The police failed to find the slightest clew. I had been called upon by them once or twice in order that they might have every grain of information I could give. I took the liberty of advising them not to waste their time in looking for the man, as his very existence was problematical. It was but a fancy of my friend's, and not worth thinking seriously about. I am not sure but what after hearing this they did not think the whole affair was an imagined one, and so relaxed their efforts.

Once or twice, Carriston, happening to be in the neighborhood of London, came to see me, and slept the night at my house. He also had no news to report. Still, he seemed hopeful as ever.

The weeks went by until Christmas was over and the New Year begun; but no sign, word, or trace of Madeline Rowan. "I have seen her," wrote Carriston, "several times. She is in the same place--unhappy, but not ill-treated."

Evidently his hallucinations were still in full force.

* * * * *

At first I intended that the whole of this tale should be told by myself; but upon getting so far it struck me that the evidence of another actor who played an important part in the drama would give certain occurrences to the reader at first instead of at second hand, so I wrote to my friend Dick Fenton, of Frenchay, Gloucestershire, and begged him, if he found himself capable of so doing, to put in simple narrative form his impressions of certain events which happened in January, 1866: events in which we two were concerned. He has been good enough to comply with my request. His communication follows.