ore, were never off me."

"Is it here now?" I asked.

"No," he replied, "it has been absent exactly a fortnight and a
day--fifteen days. It has sometimes been away so long as nearly two
months, once for three. Its absence always exceeds a fortnight, although
it may be but by a single day. Fifteen days having past since I saw it
last, it may return now at any moment."

"Is its return," I asked, "accompanied by any peculiar manifestation?"

"Nothing--no," he said. "It is simply with me again. On lifting my eyes
from a book, or turning my head, I see it, as usual, looking at me, and
then it remains, as before, for its appointed time. I have never told so
much and so minutely before to any one."

I perceived that he was agitated, and looking like death, and he
repeatedly applied his handkerchief to his forehead; I suggested that he
might be tired, and told him that I would call, with pleasure, in the
morning, but he said:

"No, if you don't mind hearing it all now. I have got so far, and I
should prefer making one effort of it. When I spoke to Dr. Harley, I had
nothing like so much to tell. You are a philosophic physician. You give
spirit its proper rank. If this thing is real--"

He paused looking at me with agitated inquiry.

"We can discuss it by-and-by, and very fully. I will give you all I
think," I answered, after an interval.

"Well--very well. If it is anything real, I say, it is prevailing,
little by little, and drawing me more interiorly into hell. Optic
nerves, he talked of. Ah! well--there are other nerves of communication.
May God Almighty help me! You shall hear.

"Its power of action, I tell you, had increased. Its malice became, in a
way, aggressive. About two years ago, some questions that were pending
between me and the bishop having been settled, I went down to my parish
in Warwickshire, anxious to find occupation in my profession. I was not
prepared for what happened, although I have since thought I might have
apprehended something like it. The reason of my saying so is this--"

He was beginning to speak with a great deal more effort and reluctance,
and sighed often, and seemed at times nearly overcome. But at this time
his manner was not agitated. It was more like that of a sinking patient,
who has given himself up.

"Yes, but I will first tell you about Kenlis, my parish.

"It was with me when I left this place for Dawlbridge. It was my silent
travelling companion, and it remained with m