“My dear sir,” said Doctor ——, after a brief pause, “I fear you have been very unhappy, indeed; but I venture to predict that the depression under which you labour will be found to originate in purely physical causes, and that with a change of air, and the aid of a few tonics, your spirits will return, and the tone of your mind be once more cheerful and tranquil as heretofore. There was, after all, more truth than we are quite willing to admit in the classic theories which assigned the undue predominance of any one affection of the mind, to the undue action or torpidity of one or other of our bodily organs. Believe me, that a little attention to diet, exercise, and the other essentials of health, under competent direction, will make you as much yourself as you can wish.” “Doctor ——” said Barton, with something like a shudder, “I _cannot_ delude myself with such a hope. I have no hope to cling to but one, and that is, that by some other spiritual agency more potent than that which tortures me, _it_ may be combated, and I delivered. If this may not be, I am lost—now and for ever lost.” “But, Mr. Barton, you must remember,” urged his companion, “that others have suffered as you have done, and——” “No, no, no,” interrupted he, with irritability—“no, sir, I am not a credulous—far from a superstitious man. I have been, perhaps, too much the reverse—too sceptical, too slow of belief; but unless I were one whom no amount of evidence could convince, unless I were to contemn the repeated, the _perpetual_ evidence of my own senses, I am now—now at last constrained to believe—I have no escape from the conviction—the overwhelming certainty—that I am haunted and dogged, go where I may, by—by a DEMON!” There was a preternatural energy of horror in Barton’s face, as, with its damp and death-like lineaments turned towards his companion, he thus delivered himself. “God help you, my poor friend,” said Dr. ——, much shocked, “God help you; for, indeed, you _are_ a sufferer, however your sufferings may have been caused.” “Ay, ay, God help me,” echoed Barton, sternly; “but _will_ he help me—will he help me?” “Pray to him—pray in an humble and trusting spirit,” said he. “Pray, pray,” echoed he again; “I can’t pray—I could as easily move a mountain by an effort of my will. I have not belief enough to pray; there is something within me that will not pray. You prescribe impossibilities—literal impossibilities.” “You will not find it so, if you will but try,” said Doctor ——. “Try! I _have_ tried, and the attempt only fills me with confusion; and, sometimes, terror; I have tried in vain, and more than in vain. The awful, unutterable idea of eternity and infinity oppresses and maddens my brain whenever my mind approaches the contemplation of the Creator; I recoil from the effort scared. I tell you, Doctor ——, if I am to be saved, it must be by other means. The idea of an eternal Creator is to me intolerable—my mind cannot support it.”