He, in his cunning, is taking all the necessary steps, such as a legal practitioner would know to be necessary, and I am to be carried off on these men's certificates to some death in life, while my affectionate Cousin Thompson takes possession here. "And he could," he mused; "everything has been arranged for him. I am not mad; I am perfectly sane, but, Heaven knows, I am acting like a madman--like one possessed. I go always with this terrible shadow enveloping me, and I cannot shake it off, try how I may. "What shall I do? "Salis! No, I cannot tell him. Mr Delton? No, no, no! I could not speak out. What would they say? They must declare it to be a mania if I tell them the simple truth, and how dare I confess to having instituted those experiments on Luke Candlish? "Was ever man so cursed for his endeavours? I have branded myself as one who is mad, and I must bear the stigma." He clenched his fist and glared before him, recalling the scene in his drawing-room, and burst into a scornful laugh--a laugh so full of savage anger that he started and looked wildly about him in dread. He calmed down though in a few minutes, and sat repeating the words that had passed. "I must have been blind not to have seen it before," he cried aloud; "and now what is to follow?" He looked up at the light shining down through the drawn curtain, and hurriedly shut it out, to reseat himself and think. Flight! Yes, he could easily escape from his cousin and his machinations--the Continent--America--or he might boldly face him, and prove that the charge of lunacy was without basis. But how, when he dared not show his face anywhere lest he should betray himself before his fellow-men? "It is of no use," he sighed bitterly; "I am conquered and I must succumb. "But Cousin Thompson? "Curse him!" he cried passionately, as he rose and began his old wild-beast tramp again. "What fate is too bad for such a man? Why did I not keep my hold when I had him by the throat?" He stopped short, and in a paroxysm of mental agony threw himself upon a chair, nerveless, helpless, ready to give up and think that his cousin was right, and that the sooner he was placed under restraint the better, or else sought that other way of escape from his troubles. As he writhed there in his agony, Mrs Milt was coming up the stairs with a tray covered with a fair white napkin, and on which was a covered dish exhaling an odour which the old dame had settled in her own mind would be certain to tempt her master. "Poor fellow!" she said to herself; "he's half starving himself, and perhaps I've done wrong in letting him have his own way. I ought to have gone up and made him eat. He'd have scolded and abused me, but I should have done him good." Mrs Milt had nearly reached the room, when she uttered an ejaculation of horror, and, setting down the tray upon the carpet, ran swiftly back to close a baize door.