Hopkins' face blanched as the fiend spoke. It was too easy for him to believe all that had been said; and why should it not be so, he asked himself. Here was a case of mortal arrayed in combat against a supernatural being, and in the nature of things it was a contest of the intellectuals and not one of the sort in which Toppleton's training would have made him an easy victor. In a bout at arms Barncastle would have been a prey to Toppleton with scarce an effort on the American's part, but mind for mind, the young lawyer was fighting against terrible odds. He had proven to a very considerable extent a winner, and yet his victory was quite as hollow as the victory of a trotting horse who has won only the preliminary heats and still has the final test to undergo; but to win even the trial heat was a great thing, and that his mind should be well-nigh used up was to have been expected. Realizing this, and realizing also that it was his defeated adversary who was advising him as to what was necessary to be done for the preservation of his sanity, he was quite overcome. He nearly fainted, in fact he would have done so had not the fiend seeing his condition applied restoratives to his head and feet, and poured between his open lips a concoction which made every drop of blood in his body glow as with health, which imparted strength to his weary limbs, and which seemed to clear his aching head with its magical potence. "You have had a narrow escape, my dear fellow," said the fiend, as Hopkins revived. "If I hadn't saved you, you would have stepped over the line." "You--are--very--very kind," murmured Hopkins, raising himself on his elbow and then dropping wearily back into the pillows again. "You place me under very deep obli--" "Don't speak of that," said the fiend with a smile. "The obligation you have placed me under is still greater. But now, Toppleton, you must sleep, or you will be beyond all hope to-morrow." "I will," said Toppleton, faintly, and then he closed his eyes and consciousness departed from him. The fiend regarded him for a moment and turned away with a sigh. "If I had had the good fortune to operate on you instead of upon Chatford," he said, "well, there'd have been a president of the United States in your family by this time, or, better still, a railway king with an amount of brains equal to the possessions of the best of them. Oh, well! he wasn't to be had, and I haven't done badly with Chatford." With which reflection the fiend passed from the room, and left Toppleton breathing heavily in sleep. When next Toppleton opened his eyes consciously to himself, he was lying on a great oak bed with a tapestry canopy over his head. The sun was streaming in through the broad mullioned windows. The world without was white with snow, the tall evergreens down by the now ice-covered Barbundle presenting the only vestige of green in sight.