n, abstracted and sometimes
morose. He manifested no curiosity as to the benefactor upon whose
charity he was living, but received the alms bestowed by that unknown
hand as children receive the gifts of God--unsolicited, uncomprehended
and unobserved.

His mind, aroused by the conversation of his untiring nurse to the
realities of the present existence, would sink back by a sort of
irresistible gravity into the realm of memory. There, in the
impenetrable privacy of his soul, he brooded over his wrongs and counted
his prospects of righting them, as a miser reckons his coins.

The spasmodic workings of his countenance, the convulsive gripping of
his hands, the grinding of his great white teeth, the scalding tears
which sometimes fell from his sightless eyes, revealed to the mind of
his patient and watchful observer the passions secretly and ceaselessly
working in his soul.

Mantel became fascinated by the study of this subjective drama. He used
to sit and watch the expressive curtain behind which these dark scenes
were being enacted, and fancy that he could follow the soul as, in the
spirit world, it tracked its foe, fell upon him and exacted its terrible
revenge. At times he imagined that he could actually see the enraged
thoughts issue from the body as if it were a den or cave, and they,
living beasts of prey ranging abroad by day and night, and returning
with their booty to devour it; or, if they had failed to take it, to
brood over the failure of their hunt.

In all this time he asked for nothing, he complained of nothing,
commented on nothing. Mantel would have concluded that his heart was
dead had it not been for his pathetic demonstrations of affection for
the little terrier who had so faithfully guided him from his lodging to
the places where he sat and begged.

The dog reciprocated these attentions with a devotion and a gratitude
which were human in their intensity and depth. It was as beautiful as it
was pathetic, to see these two friends bestowing upon each other their
few but expressive signs of love.

Not until many weeks had passed did Mantel succeed in really engaging
his patient in anything like a conversation, and even after he had begun
to thaw a little under those tactful ministrations of love, whenever the
past was even hinted at the old recluse relapsed instantly into silence.

Mantel might have been discouraged had he not determined at all hazards
to enter into the secrets of this life, and t