The week's rest in the country had set Mr. Marks up for some months. Until the next autumn he worked on better than he had been able to do for some time past. And then he failed again. There was no particular failing outwardly, but he felt all too conscious that his overtaxed brain was getting worse than it had ever been. He struggled on; making no sign. That he should have to resign part of his work was an inevitable fact: he must give up the evening book-keeping to enable him to keep his more important place. "Once let me get Christmas work over," thought he, "and as soon as possible in the New Year, I will resign." He got the Christmas work over. Very heavy it was, at both places, and nearly did for him. It is the last straw, you know, that breaks the camel's back: and that work broke James Marks. Towards the end of January he was laid up in bed with a violent cold that settled on his chest. Brown and Co. had to do without him for eleven days: a calamity that--so far as Marks was concerned--had never happened in Brown and Co.'s experience. Then he went back to the city again, feeling shaken; but the evening labour was perforce given up. No one knew how ill he was: or, to speak more correctly, how unfit for work, how more incapable of it he was growing day by day. His wife suspected a little. She knew of his sleepless nights, the result of overtaxed nerves and brain, when he would toss and turn and get up and walk the room; and dress himself in the morning without having slept. "There are times," he said to her in a sort of horror, "when I cannot at all collect my thoughts. I am as long again at my work as I used to be, and have to go over it again and again. There have been one or two mistakes, and old Brown asks what is coming to me. I can't help it. The figures whirl before me, and I lose my power of mind." "If you could only sleep well!" said Mrs. Marks. "Ay, if I could. The brain is as much at work by night as by day. There are the figures mentally before me, and there am I, adding them up." "You should see a clever physician, James. Spare the guinea, and go. It may be more than the guinea saved." Mr. Marks took the advice. He went to a clever doctor; explained his position, the kind of work he had to do, and described his symptoms. "Can I be cured?" he asked. "Oh yes, I think so," said the doctor, cheerfully, without telling him that he had gone on so far as to make it rather doubtful. "The necessary treatment is very simple. Take change of scene and perfect rest." "For how long?" "Twelve months, at least." "Twelve months!" repeated Marks, in a queer tone. "At least. It is a case of absolute necessity. I will write you a prescription for a tonic. You must live _well_. You have not lived well enough for the work you have to do."