question my father! I must tell you, for
only you can advise and help us all. Doctor! doctor! the very thought
drives me mad--indeed, I feel half mad already.'

'You are worn out, Gabriel. Wait one moment.'

The doctor saw that his visitor's nerves were overstrained, and that,
unless the tension were relaxed, he would probably end in having a fit
of hysteria. The poor young fellow, born of a weakly mother, was
neurotic in the extreme, and had in him a feminine strain, which made
him unequal to facing trouble or anxiety. Even as he sat there, shaking
and white-faced, the nerve-storm came on, and racked and knotted and
tortured every fibre of his being, until a burst of tears came to his
relief, and almost in a swoon he lay back limply in his chair. Graham
mixed him a strong dose of valerian, felt his pulse, and made him lie
down on the sofa. Also, he darkened the room, and placed a wet
handkerchief on the curate's forehead. Gabriel closed his eyes, and lay
on the couch as still as any corpse, while the doctor, who knew what he
suffered, watched him with infinite pity.

'Poor lad!' he murmured, holding Gabriel's hand in his firm, warm clasp.
'Nature is indeed a harsh stepmother to you. With your nerves, the
pin-prickles of life are so many dagger-thrusts. Do you feel better
now?' he asked, as Gabriel opened his eyes with a languid sigh. 'Much
better and more composed,' replied the wan curate, sitting up. 'You have
given me a magical drug.'

'You may well call it that. This particular preparation of valerian is
nepenthe for the nerves. But you are not quite recovered yet; the swell
remains after the storm, you know. Why not postpone your story?'

'I cannot! I dare not!' said Gabriel, earnestly. 'I must ease my mind by
telling it to you. Doctor, do you know that the visitor who made my
father ill on the night of the reception was Jentham?'

'No, my boy, I did not know that. Who told you?'

'John, our old servant, who admitted him. He told me about Jentham just
before I went to Nauheim.'

'Did Jentham give his name?'

'No, but John, like many other people, saw the body in the dead-house.
He there recognised Jentham by his gipsy looks and the scar on his face.
Well, doctor, I wondered what the man could have said to so upset the
bishop, but of course I did not dare to ask him. By the time I got to
Germany the episode passed out of my mind.'

'And what recalled it?'

'Something my mother said. We were in the Kurg