"`Must speak plainly, sir,' he said. `It is of no use to talk of hope to a man when one feels that there can be none. Poor fellow, his face tells the tale plainly enough. Drink. Stimulus after stimulus till the brandy, or whatever it is, ceases to have its effect. I knew one poor fellow who used to heat brandy over a spirit lamp to make its effect more rapid. Yes, ceases to have its effect, and more is used. Then the digestive powers break down, the over-goaded brain leaps from its bounds, and we have the delirium that ends in men feeling that life is not worth living, and makes them suicidal like this.'" "You remember the very words?" said Stratton, looking at his friend wonderingly. "Word for word," said Brettison slowly, "and always shall. I remember, too, the thrill of horror that ran through my nerves as he stood for a few moments with his back to me, between me and the bed, bending first over his patient, and then straightening himself up and raising one arm--his right--with the fist clenched, all but the index finger, which he passed over his shoulder to touch, with the point of the finger, the spot behind his own ear where the bullet had entered. "For a few moments I did not understand his gesture; then I grasped the fact, and followed his thoughts. He was, in imagination, holding a pistol to his head as he thought his patient must have held it when the trigger was drawn. He had completely taken my view that I wished to impart, and he was thinking of the inquest and the evidence he would have to give." Stratton looked at him for a few moments with dilated eyes. At last he spoke, for Brettison had become wrapped in thought, and sat gazing before him, as if seeing the whole horror once again. "And did he," said Stratton, in broken words, "attend him--to the end; did he say--at the inquest--that it was suicide?" "No," said Brettison, looking up with a start from his musings, and watching the effect of his words on his companion; "he tended him, but James Dale, or Barron, did not die. He is living now." CHAPTER FORTY FIVE. BRETTISON IS MYSTERIOUS. "James Barron living now?" cried Stratton excitedly. "Thank Heaven!" But as the words left his lips his whole manner changed. His face had lighted up at Brettison's announcement, for the knowledge that he was not answerable for the convict's death--that he had not slain the husband of the woman he loved--was a tremendous weight, which had crushed him down, suddenly removed; but, like a sudden, scathing flash, came the horror of Myra's position once more. There was no selfishness in the feeling; his thoughts were solely of and for her. That man still lived, and she was his wife--tied to an escaped convict, and at his mercy, unless Brettison had done his duty and handed him over to the authorities. But with his sympathetic feeling for her, there came over him a sense of overwhelming despair at his own helpless position.