w how to write down; but it
seems there's more the matter with his mind than his body, and that
he must have had some great fright which has shaken his nerves all to
pieces. The only way to do him good, as the doctor said, was to have him
carefully nursed by his relations, and kept quiet among people he knew;
strange faces about him being likely to make him worse. The doctor asked
where his friends lived; but he wouldn't say, and, lately, he's got so
much worse that he can't speak clearly to us at all.

Yesterday evening, he gave us all a fright. The doctor hearing me below,
asking after him, said I was to come up stairs and help to move him to
have his bed made. As soon as I raised him up (though I'm sure I touched
him as gently as I could), he fainted dead away. While he was being
brought to, a little piece of something that looked like card-board,
prettily embroidered with beads and silk, came away from a string that
held it round his neck, and dropped off the bedside. I picked it up;
for I remembered the time, Mary, when you and I were courting, and how
precious the least thing was to me that belonged to you. So I took care
of it for him, thinking it might be a keepsake from his sweetheart.
And sure enough, when he came to, he put up his thin white hands to his
neck, and looked so thankful at me when I tied the little thing again to
the string! Just as I had done that, the doctor beckons me to the other
end of the room.

"This won't do," says he to me in a whisper. "If he goes on like this,
he'll lose his reason, if not his life. I must search his papers, to
find out what friends he has; and you must be my witness."

So the doctor opens his little bag, and takes out a square sealed packet
first; then two or three letters tied together; the poor soul looking
all the while as if he longed to prevent us from touching them. Well,
the doctor said there was no occasion to open the packet, for the
direction was the same on all the letters, and the name corresponded
with his initials marked on his linen.

"I'm next to certain this is where he lives, or did live; so this is
where I'll write," says the doctor.

"Shall my wife take the letter, Sir?" says I. "She's in London with our
girl, Susan; and, if his friends should be gone away from where you are
writing to, she may be able to trace them."

"Quite right, Penhale!" says he; "we'll do that. Write to your wife, and
put my letter inside yours."

I did as he told me,