med to speak as I have
spoken to-day. I can but apologize and withdraw."

Before Lesley could answer, he had taken his hat, bowed profoundly, and
left the room.

And Lesley, with lips from which all color had faded, and hands pressed
tightly together, watched him go, and stood for some minutes in dazed,
despairing silence before she could say, even to herself, with a burst
of hot and bitter tears,

"Oh, I did not mean him to think _that_. And now I cannot explain! What
shall I do? What _can_ I do to make him understand?"

But that was a question for which she found no answer.

CHAPTER XXVI.

CURED.

"You are quite well," said the doctor to John Smith, otherwise called
Francis Trent, at the great hospital one day. "You can go out to-morrow.
There is nothing more that we can do for you."

Smith raised his dull eyes to their faces.

"Am I--cured?" he asked.

One of the doctors shrugged his shoulders a little. Another answered
kindly and pityingly,

"You will find that you are not as strong as you used to be. Not the
same man in many respects. But you will be able to get your own living,
and we see no reason for detaining you here. What was your trade?"

The patient looked down at his white, thin hands. "I don't know," he
said.

"Have you friends to go to?"

There was a pause. Some of the medical students who were listening came
a little nearer. As a matter of fact, Francis Trent's future depended
very largely on the answer he made to this question. The statement that
he was "quite well" was hazarded rather by way of experiment than as a
matter of fact. The doctors wanted to know what he would say and do
under pressure, for some of them were beginning to suggest that the man
should be removed to the workhouse infirmary or a lunatic asylum. His
faculties seemed to be hopelessly beclouded.

Suddenly he lifted his head. A new sharp light had come into his eyes.
He nodded reassuringly.

"Yes, I have friends," he said.

"You have a home where you can go? Shall we write to your friends to
meet you?"

"No, thank you, sir. I can find my own way home."

And then they conferred together a little, and left him, and reported
that he was cured.

Certainly, there seemed to be nothing the matter with him now. His
wounds and injuries had healed, his bodily strength was returning. But
the haze which hung over his mind was far more impenetrable than the
doctors guessed. Something of it had been apparent to