"I took an oath, when I found to what I was reduced, that I would never look upon the face of man again, and I have kept it." "I should think that you were more likely to be forgiven for breaking such an oath than for keeping it," said the doctor drily. "But I have kept it!" said Robert Millet sternly. "In a few short hours I found that I had lost all worth living for, and I retired here to die." "Yes," said the doctor, in his bluff, dry way; "but when you found that you were so long dying, I think you might have done something useful." There was no reply to this, and the doctor loosed the thin white hand, and began to tap the little ledge by the panel. "I wrote down to Huish about his son's illness," he said at last. "Yes: well?" said the recluse eagerly. "He begged me to do all I could. He never leaves his room now. Gout or rheumatism has crippled him. Strange how things come about with the young people." "Yes: I'm getting old now, and I wanted to feel full of forgiveness towards Huish, and that is why I took to his boy. It is hard that matters have turned out as they have." "Very," said the doctor. "Well, I'm not going to advise, but I should like to know that you had broken your oath at last, and let light into your brain as well as into your house. Good-bye; I'll let you know how John Huish gets on." Dr Stonor went straight to Highgate and found what seemed an improvement in his patient, for Huish was sitting up; but he seemed strangely reticent and thoughtful, and never asked any questions as to his wife or his relatives, but seemed to be dreaming over something with which his mind was filled. Time passed, and with closely cut hair, and a strange sallowness in his complexion, John Huish was up, and had been out times enough in the extensive garden, but there was a something in his manner that troubled the doctor a great deal, and was looked upon by him as a bad symptom. He was always dreaming over something, and what that was he never said. Miss Stonor conversed with him, and he was gentle and talked rationally. He answered the doctor's questions reasonably enough, and yet, as soon as his attention was released, he was back again, dreaming over the one thing that seemed to trouble his mind. "Will he get well?" said Miss Selina to the doctor one morning. "I'd give something to be able to say," was the reply. "At times I think not, for I fear the impression upon his mind is that he is insane, and if a man believes that of himself, how can we get him to act like one who is sane?" This was at breakfast-time, and the doctor soon after went out, leaving an assistant in charge.