was
broken into two parts--as clean and sharp and complete a break as in
any case I know of. Our task now is to reunite them and make a whole
man again out of the halves into which you have separated."

Brand leaned forward eagerly. "Then you'll help me?" he demanded. "You
won't go over to his side? The damned hypocrite! He says he is more
entitled to life than I am, because he's a better man, because he
wants to do good. Why, Doctor, in the last letter he sent me--"
Brand's anger was rising again--"he ordered me to make my will, and to
leave a letter for some one that would explain my disappearance so
that it would be known that I was gone for good, that I was never
coming back!" The physician held his patient with a calm gaze and made
a sign that he was to control himself. And in a moment Felix sank back
into his seat, trembling with the reaction from his burst of temper,
and imploring the other for the gift of a longer lease of life.

"You'll send him back to where he came from, won't you, Dr. Annister?
You won't let him have his will over me?"

"We can succeed," the doctor assured him in confident tones, "if you
will do your part. You must control yourself at all times. Try to
strengthen your enfeebled will power. Live quietly, sanely, and a
clean, moral life. I don't believe you've been doing that, Felix."

"Oh, I've had to keep some excitement going. I've motored like the
devil all around New York, and when I could have pleasant company with
me that helped to hold that damned creature down as much as anything.
Some people were better than others. Miss Marne's sister, a jolly
girl, especially if I fed her with champagne while we were out, was
very useful and she saved me several times. But the last time it was
a failure. She seemed to be afraid of me and though I made her drink
wine till she was drunk, it was no good. I came back no better off
than I was before."

Dr. Annister made a sudden movement and looked at his watch. He was
conscious of an irruption of unprofessional loathing into his feeling
for his patient. He was wondering how much this callous disregard of
everything but his own interest was due to his abnormal condition and
how much to his innate selfishness; and his thoughts flew to his own
cherished daughter.

"Well, Felix," he said rising, "I'm due--I've barely time to make
it--at a consultation over an important case, so that we can't go any
farther into this now. But I can help you. I'm sure