"Tell me everything," he said. "Nothing you can say will startle me, but if there is any possibility of my helping you I must know the case as far as you can give it me." "I have but little to say," replied Awdrey. "I am paralyzed day after day simply by want of feeling. Even a sense of pain, of irritation, is a relief--the deadness of my life is so overpowering. Do you know the history of my house?" "Your wife has told me. It is a queer story." "It is a damnable story," said Awdrey. "With such a fate hanging over me, why was I born? Why did my father marry? Why did my mother bring a man-child into the world? Men with dooms like mine ought never to have descendants. I curse the thought that I have a child myself. It is all cruel, monstrous." "But the thing you fear has not fallen upon you," said Dr. Rumsey. "Has it not? I believe it has." "How can you possibly imagine what is not the case?" "Dr. Rumsey," said Awdrey, advancing a step or two to meet him, "I don't imagine what I know. Look at me. I am six-and-twenty. Do I look that age?" "I must confess that you look older than your years." "Aye, I should think so. See my hair already mingled with gray. Feel this nerveless hand. Is this the hand of the English youth of six-and-twenty? Look at my eyes--how dull they are; are they the eyes of a man in his prime? No, no, I am going down to the grave as the other men of my house have gone, simply because I cannot help it. Like those who have gone before me I slip, and slip, and slip, and cannot get a grip of life anywhere, and so I go out, or go over the precipice into God knows what--anyhow I go." "Poor fellow, he is far worse than I had any idea of," thought the doctor. He took his patient's hand, and led him to a seat. "You are quite ill enough to see a doctor," he said, "and ought to have had advice long ago. I mean to take you up, Awdrey. From this moment you must consider yourself my patient." "If you can do anything for me I shall be glad--that is, no, I shall not be glad, for I am incapable of the sensation, but I am aware it is the right thing to put myself into your hands. What do you advise?" "I cannot tell you until I know more. My present impression is that you are simply the victim of nerve terrors. You have dwelt upon the doom of your house for so long a time that you are now fully convinced that you are one of the victims. But you must please remember that the special feature of the tragedy, for tragedy it is, has not occurred in your case, for you have never forgotten anything of consequence." "Only one thing--it sounds stupid even to speak of it, but it worries me inconceivably. There was a murder committed on Salisbury Plain the night before I got engaged to Margaret. On that night I lost a walking-stick which I was particularly fond of."