“My friend,” he said gently—what a superb voice he had, and how the deep, rich, mellow tones brushed away anger, hatred and fear—“my friend, I owe you my life twice. First, you saved it; now, you spare it. And I owe you more than life. I owe you my restoration to reason, to perfect sanity. For I have been bitten by a mania so wild, so strange, so improbable that no man save you who have seen it would believe in its existence. ‘Like cures like.’ It came through a fall and a shock. It has been cured through a fall and a shock. You were right. I _was_ a liar. The greatest on earth, I believe, and I gloried in it, and hated to tell a truth lest it should bring a pink spot on my nails. No, don’t lift me up.” I had attempted to raise him and had blurted out a word or two of shame, sympathy and pity. “I prefer to lie here while I tell you the story,” he went on. “You have no cause to be ashamed; it was simple self-defense on your part, for I should probably have killed you in my paroxysm. Besides, you do not realize what you have done for me. But I thank you for your kindly sympathy; it is not wasted, believe me. Now, if you will do me a favor, watch my nails, and, if they become normal, tell me. But, first, put one of those wet compresses on your wound and slip the bandage over it. You will forgive me by and bye for fighting with a guest to whom I owed so much. I was not responsible.” I hastened to reassure him, and he resumed: “Before I begin my own weird tale, let me relieve your mind about that poor, wronged, sensitive child, Mrs. Abbott. I will go back with you to Laneville, and we will break that will wide open. There will be no trouble about it. Johnstone is a whelp, his wife is a criminal, and I can put them both behind the bars. That little woman shall be righted, if it takes my entire fortune to do it. Now, listen. A trifle over a year ago, getting out of my phaeton, I fell, struck my head and was out of my mind for some weeks. When I regained health and strength I found that my injury had left me with the most unthinkable hallucination that ever crept into a human brain. Subconsciously, I knew it was a vicious delusion, but I took the same delight in it that a patient partly in the control of delirium sometimes takes in the absurdities he utters.