It was some time before he could resume his line of thought. “I know,” he mused at length, “that I denied the charge and resisted the arrest, and that there was a fight. One of the officers clubbed me—on the head—and I fell like an ox, and knew no more. When I came to myself I was lying here.” He paused again, and seemed to labor to understand his present position. “How came I to be here?” he inquired of himself; and after a few minutes exclaimed: “Oh, I know! I see it all now! I had given the living of Haymore to my brother-in-law, Cassius Leegh—the scoundrel! When I was brained by the club of that constable, of course I was more a dead than a living man, and in no condition to be carted off ten miles to the Chuxton jail! So I was placed under arrest and brought here in charge of constables. And here I am in my brother-in-law’s rectory, guarded by officers, and particularly by that Giant Gerion, who never leaves me, night or day—set fire to him!” Gentleman Geff moaned and groaned and tossed until Longman brought him a glass of milk punch, which seemed to soothe him. Then he resumed his self-communings: “I wonder, since I am in his rectory, which was also my gift to him, why I never see Cassius Leegh? And I wonder where his sister, my bogus wife, is? And, more than all, I wonder now—what brings James Campbell here?” He paused in distress, and then moaned to himself: “I give it up! I give it up! It is all past me! ‘Chaos has come again.’ But one thing is clear, even in chaos—that is, I must escape from this house. I must not wait to be taken to jail, as I should be as soon as the doctor has pronounced me well enough to be removed.” He thought as intensely as he was capable of thinking, and then suddenly formed a plan. “I will not get well enough to be removed while I stay here, and I will escape from the house at the first opportunity.” From this day the patient became a puzzle to his physician as well as to his attendants. He did not seem to gain in strength, but to grow weaker and more helpless every day; notwithstanding that his appetite was good. At night he was restless and delirious. “I confess that this case perplexes me,” Dr. Hobbs admitted to Mr. Campbell. But the case grew out of a misunderstanding between the patient and his attendants. Gentleman Geff, not quite in his right mind yet, believed himself to be under arrest with the prospect of a prison, a trial and conviction before him; whereas there was no intention on any one’s part of even making an accusation against him. His physician and watchers, not knowing the delusion under which he silently and fearfully suffered, could not suspect him of playing a part to prolong his sojourn at the rectory and postpone his transfer to the prison.