left the doctor with him, to come out and get something for my own
nerves."

"What did the doctor say was the matter?" asked young Haight, in horror.

"_Lycanthropy-Pathesis_. I never heard the name before--some kind of
nervous disease. I guess Van had been hitting up a pretty rapid gait,
and then I suppose he's had a good deal to worry him, too."

* * * * *

Once more the attack passed off, leaving Vandover exhausted, his nerves
all jangling, his health impaired. Every day he seemed to grow thinner,
great brown hollows grew under his eyes, and the skin of his forehead
looked blue and tightly drawn. By degrees a deep gloom overcame him
permanently, nothing could interest him, nothing seemed worth while. Not
only were his nerves out of tune, but they were jaded, deadened, slack;
they were like harpstrings that had been played upon so long and so
violently that now they could no longer vibrate unless swept with a very
whirlwind.

As he had foreseen, Vandover had returned again to vice, to the vice
that was knitted into him now, fibre for fibre, to the ways of the brute
that by degrees was taking entire possession of him. But he no longer
found pleasure even in vice; once it had been his amusement, now it was
his occupation. It was the only thing that seemed to ease the horrible
nervousness that of late had begun to prey upon him constantly.

But though nothing could amuse him, on the other hand nothing could
worry him; in the end the very riot of his nerves ceased even to annoy
him. He had arrived at a state of absolute indifference. He had so often
rearranged his pliable nature to suit his changing environment that at
last he found that he could be content in almost any circumstances. He
had no pleasures, no cares, no ambitions, no regrets, no hopes. It was
mere passive existence, an inert, plantlike vegetation, the moment's
pause before the final decay, the last inevitable rot.

One day after he had been living nearly a year at the Lick House, Adams
& Brunt, the real estate agents, sent him word that they had an offer
for his property on California Street. It was the homestead. The English
gentleman, the president of the fruit syndicate who had rented the house
of Vandover, was now willing to buy it. His business was by this time on
a firm and paying basis and he had decided to make his home in San
Francisco. He offered twenty-five thousand dollars for the house,
including the furn