Let Ralph Carriston be guilty or innocent of the extraordinary crime which his cousin laid at his door, I felt that he was anxious to obtain possession of the supposed lunatic's person. It would suit his purposes for his cousin to be proved mad. I did not believe that even if the capture was legally effected Carriston's liberation would be a matter of great difficulty so long as he remained in his present state of mind; so long as I, a doctor of some standing, could go into the witness-box and swear to his sanity. But my old dread was always with me--the dread that any further shock would overturn the balance of his sensitive mind. So it was that every hour that Carriston was out of my sight was fraught with anxiety. If Ralph Carriston was really as unscrupulous as my friend supposed; if he had really, as seemed almost probable, suborned our agent; he might by some crafty trick obtain the needful certificate, and some day I should come home and find Carriston had been removed. In such a case I foresaw great trouble and distress. Besides, after all that had occurred, it was as much as I could do to believe that Carriston was not mad. Any doctor who knew what I knew would have given the verdict against him. After dismissing his visions and hallucinations with the contempt which they deserved, the fact of a man who was madly, passionately in love with a woman, and who believed that she had been entrapped and was still kept in restraint, sitting down quietly, and letting day after day pass without making an effort toward finding her, was in itself _prima facie_ evidence of insanity. A sane man would at once have set all the engines of detection at work. I felt that if once Ralph Carriston obtained possession of him he could make out a strong case in his own favor. First of all, the proposed marriage out of the defendant's own sphere of life; the passing under a false name; the ridiculous, or apparently ridiculous, accusation made against his kinsman; the murderous threats; the chastisement of his own paid agent who brought him a report which might not seem at all untrue to any one who knew not Madeline Rowan. Leaving out the question what might be wrung from me in cross-examination, Ralph Carriston had a strong case, and I knew that, once in his power, my friend might possibly be doomed to pass years, if not his whole life, under restraint. So I was anxious--very anxious.