t it hours! I was quite done
for, and could hardly get down-stairs. I knew the spirit was being
crushed out of me by the solitary period, and it is plain that I must
think of nothing that needs nerve or presence of mind!' he added, in a
tone of quiet dejection.

'You are hardly in a state to judge of your nerve, after sleepless
nights and the loss of your teeth. Besides, there is a difference
between the real and imaginary, as you have found; you who, in the
terrible time of real anticipation, were a marvel in that very point of
physical resolution.'

'I could keep thoughts out _then_,' he said; 'I was master of myself.'

'You mean that the solitude unhinged you? Yet I always found you brave
and cheerful.'

'The sight of you made me so. Nay, the very sight or sound of any
human being made a difference! And now you all treat me as if I had
borne it well, but I did not. It was all that was left me to do, but
indeed I did not.'

'What do you mean by bearing it well?' said the Doctor, in the tone in
which he would have questioned a patient.

'Living--as--as I thought I should when I made up my mind to life
instead of death,' said Leonard; 'but all that went away. I let it
slip, and instead came everything possible of cowardice, and hatred,
and bitterness. I lost my hold of certainty what I had done or what I
had not, and the horror, the malice, the rebellion that used to come on
me in that frightful light white silent place, were unutterable! I
wish you would not have me among you all, when I know there can hardly
be a wicked thought that did not surge over me.'

'To be conquered.'

'To conquer me,' he said, in utter lassitude.

'Stay. Did they ever make you offend wilfully?'

'There was nothing I could offend in.'

'Your tasks of work, for instance.'

'I often had a savage frantic abhorrence of it, but I always brought
myself to do it, and it did me good; it would have done more if it had
been less mechanical. But it often was only the instinct of not
degrading myself like the lowest prisoners.'

'Well, there was your conduct to the officials.'

'Oh! one could not help being amenable to them, they were so kind.
Besides, these demons never came over me except when I was alone.'

'And one thing more, Leonard; did these demons, as you well call them,
invade your devotions?'

'Never,' he answered readily; then recalling himself--'not at the set
times I mean, though they often made me think the