certificates for placing him under medical care. This
conclusion (as I afterward heard) was greatly strengthened by the fact
that Mr. Varleigh's body had not been found on the reported scene of the
duel. As to the servant, he had deserted his master in London, and had
never reappeared. So far as my poor judgment went, the question before
me was not of delivering a self-accused murderer to justice (with no
corpse to testify against him), but of restoring an insane man to the
care of the persons who had been appointed to restrain him.

I tried to test the strength of his delusion in an interval when he was
not urging his shocking entreaties on Miss Laroche. "How do you know
that you killed Mr. Varleigh?" I said.

He looked at me with a wild terror in his eyes. Suddenly he lifted
his right hand, and shook it in the air, with a moaning cry, which was
unmistakably a cry of pain. "Should I see his ghost," he asked, "if I
had not killed him? I know it, by the pain that wrings me in the hand
that stabbed him. Always in my right hand! always the same pain at the
moment when I see him!" He stopped and ground his teeth in the agony and
reality of his delusion. "Look!" he cried. "Look between the two trees
behind you. There he is--with his dark hair, and his shaven face, and
his steady look! There he is, standing before me as he stood in the
wood, with his eyes on my eyes, and his sword feeling mine!" He turned
to Miss Laroche. "Do _you_ see him too?" he asked eagerly. "Tell me the
truth. My whole life depends on your telling me the truth."

She controlled herself with a wonderful courage. "I don't see him," she
answered.

He took out his handkerchief, and passed it over his face with a gasp
of relief. "There is my last chance!" he said. "If she will be true to
me--if she will be always near me, morning, noon, and night, I shall be
released from the sight of him. See! he is fading away already! Gone!"
h e cried, with a scream of exultation. He fell on his knees, and looked
at Miss Laroche like a savage adoring his idol. "Will you cast me off
now?" he asked, humbly. "Lionel was fond of you in his lifetime. His
spirit is a merciful spirit. He shrinks from frightening you, he has
left me for your sake; he will release me for your sake. Pity me, take
me to live with you--and I shall never see him again!"

It was dreadful to hear him. I saw that the poor girl could endure no
more. "Leave us," I whispered to her; "I will join you at