that man be with
you, and his nurse, and always under your eye."

"Willingly."

"When tired of one place go to another; but he must not be left."

"I'll do it," said Brettison eagerly.

"I knew you would. But listen; I shall share your task. I'll give up
everything to guard against that horror. Will you help me?"

"My boy, I tell you, yes; and gladly, too, now that this black shadow is
being swept from your life."

"Thank you, Brettison. We will start to-morrow, if possible; if not, as
soon as it is."

"Good. He will be no trouble, and it will be like old times again,
Malcolm. Bless you, my boy! It gives me life to see you growing firm
and like yourself again. Who's that?"

He started as he stood up and clasped Stratton's hand, for there was a
sharp double knock at the outer door.

"Guest," said Stratton. "There, our plans are made. They are for
ourselves alone I trust Guest, but not yet with this."

He threw open the inner door, and unfastened the outer, which was drawn
from his hand, and the man regarding whom they had been planning,
looking intent and strange, strode into the room.

"James Barron!"

"Yes; I have business with you, sir," he said, in quite his old tone.
"Mr Malcolm Stratton, I believe?"

CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN.

FLASHING BACK TO LIFE.

Brettison leaped from his chair, and Stratton literally staggered back
against a glass case so violently that a figure upon it toppled over and
fell with a crash, as if emblematic of another downfall of all hope.

For it seemed incredible. Little more than an hour before they had left
this man apparently a helpless imbecile, unable to concentrate his
mental faculties save upon one point, and only at certain times upon
that, at all others hopelessly blank. While now the vacuity had
apparently departed, his face looked eager and animated, and the
helpless log had turned into a dangerous enemy, whose fresh coming upon
the scene completely upset all calculations, and the question staring
them in the face was how to act next.

For it was quite plain; so long as the man had gone on in his quiet,
regular track, with his nurse in attendance, and his invalid-chair
waiting to take him a short distance every morning, his mind had
remained blank; but though he had made no sign--though he had apparently
not been in any way impressed by Stratton's company--beneath the calm,
dreamy surface the old man had been evoked, the thoughts lying dormant
had