"I came," replied Langford, "from a personal motive; but I did not expect, Franklin, to find you in this state, and the thoughts of myself are swallowed up in pain to find you thus." "What! you mean I am mad!" burst forth Franklin Gray. "It is true, I am mad, madder than any that we used to see nursed by the Brothers of Charity at Charenton. But what matters that? Every one else is as mad as myself. Was not she mad to let me think that she had betrayed me? Was she not madder still to send me word when she was dying that she had not betrayed me, and to pile coals of fire upon my head? Was she not mad to die at all, and leave me with this infant?" and sitting upon the ground, he looked earnestly upon the face of the child, which his vehemence had awakened up from its sleep. After pausing for a few minutes, and pressing his hand tightly upon his brow, he turned to Langford more collectedly, saying, "You told me you came here from a personal motive. What was it? Speak quickly, while my mind will go straight, for my brain is like a horse that has just gone blind, and wavers from one side of the road to the other." And he laughed wildly at his own simile. "The motive that brought me, Franklin," replied Langford, "was to obtain from you the papers which you know I have been so long seeking to possess. My mother's marriage, it seems, cannot be proved without them." Franklin Gray started upon his feet, and gazed with wild surprise in Langford's face. "I have them not," he exclaimed; "I never touched them. Did you not take them? It was your own fault, then; and they were burnt with the house. We rushed out as fast as we could go. I know nothing further."