ever, nodded slightly and impatiently, as if to intimate an
intolerance of ceremony, and, advancing a step or two, said abruptly--

"My name, sir, is Marston; I have come to give you a patient."

The doctor bowed with a still deeper inclination, and paused for a
continuance of the communication thus auspiciously commenced.

"You are Dr. Parkes, I take it for granted," said Marston, in the
same tone.

"Your most obedient, humble servant, sir," replied he, with the polite
formality of the day, and another grave bow.

"Doctor," demanded Marston, fixing his eye upon him sternly, and
significantly tapping his own forehead, "can you stay execution?"

The physician looked puzzled, hesitated, and at last requested his
visitor to be more explicit.

"Can you," said Marston, with the same slow and stern articulation, and
after a considerable pause--"can you prevent the malady you profess to
cure?--can you meet and defeat the enemy halfway?--can you scare away the
spirit of madness before it takes actual possession, and while it is
still only hovering about its threatened victim?"

"Sir," he replied, "in certain cases--in very many, indeed--the enemy, as
you well call it, may thus be met, and effectually worsted at a distance.
Timely interposition, in ninety cases out of a hundred, is everything;
and, I assure you, I hear your question with much pleasure, inasmuch as I
assume it to have reference to the case of the patient about whom you
desire to consult me; and who is, therefore, I hope, as yet merely
menaced with the misfortune from which you would save him."

"I, myself, am that patient, sir," said Marston, with an effort; "your
surmise is right. I am not mad, but unequivocally menaced with madness;
it is not to be mistaken. Sir, there is no misunderstanding the
tremendous and intolerable signs that glare upon my mind."

"And pray, sir, have you consulted your friends or your family upon the
course best to be pursued?" inquired Dr. Parkes, with grave interest.

"No, sir," he answered sharply, and almost fiercely; "I have no fancy to
make myself the subject of a writ _de lunatico inquirendo_; I don't want
to lose my liberty and my property at a blow. The course I mean to take
has been advised by no one but myself--is known to no other. I now
disclose it, and the causes of it, to you, a gentleman, and my
professional adviser, in the expectation that you will guard with the
strictest secrecy my spontaneous revelations;