George Harrington said nothing, but stood at the head of the couch, ready to seize and hold the sufferer the moment the next paroxysm occurred. He had not long to wait, for with a howl that did not seem human, Saul Harrington made such a start that the couch cracked as if it was being wrenched apart. "Ah, you here! Watching! But you can't speak--you can't tell tales. If I'd known, I'd have silenced you. Lie down, brute! Do you hear--lie down! Hey, Bruno, then; good dog. Lie down, old man," he said, laughing softly, and talking in a low cajoling tone. "You know me, Bruno. Good dog, then. Lie down, old fellow. Friends, do you hear-- friends. Good dog, then." He extended a hand toward the dog he imagined that he saw, smiling unpleasantly the while, and then once more he started and yelled horribly. "Down, you beast! Curse you! Bitten me, have you. I'll have your life, if I die for it. Beast! Devil! Curse you! Strong, are you? Yes, and I am strong too. Oh, if I had a knife!" He panted out these words in a series of hoarse cries; and all he while, as far as his hands would allow, he went through the movements of one having a desperate struggle with a great dog--fending off its efforts to get at his throat. Again clapping his hand to his arm with a moan of pain, and ending by striking at the animal which had attacked him blow after blow, to sink back looking hideously ghastly and perfectly exhausted by his efforts. "Poor fellow!" said the lawyer, as the sick man lay with his eyes half closed. "How unlucky for the dog to spring at him. Seems to have completely shattered his brain." "Yes," said the doctor gravely, as he held his patient's wrist. "Terrible work, sir," continued the lawyer, looking at George Harrington, but the young man made no reply. He was staring thoughtfully at the wretched man, apparently waiting the moment when he must lean over the head of the sofa, and hold him down; but all the while following up a clue which his active imagination painted before him in vivid colours. For, as he stood there, the wanderings of the delirious man's brain evoked a chain of ideas, and he saw farther than his two companions, who attributed the violence of the paroxysms to the shock caused by the dog's attack. "The trouble must be farther back than that," he thought. "The dog had dashed at him as if for some former cause," and the incoherent panting words which he heard better than his companions at the feet could, he read as by the key suggested to his mind. Once started upon this track, all came very easily.