Aurelian placed his principal reliance upon the violent jealousy Sternhold had exhibited. So vehement and irregulated a passion founded upon mere phantasms of the imagination, was in itself strong presumptive proof of an unsound mind. He had no difficulty in finding witnesses to Sternhold’s outrageous conduct. The old man had been seen walking up and down the street, on the opposite side of the pavement to the house in which Lucia lived, for hours and hours at a time, simply watching. He had been heard to use violent and threatening language. He had made himself ill. The mind was so overwrought by excitement that it reacted upon the body, and it was some time before the balance was restored—if indeed it could ever be restored. There were many trifling little things of manner—of fidgetiness—absurd personal habits—which, taken in conjunction with the bad temper he had displayed, went to make up the case. Aurelian added to this the vanity Sternhold had of late openly indulged in. This was notorious, and had become a by-word. But when Aurelian had written all this out upon paper—when he had, as it were, prepared his brief—his shrewd sense told him that in truth it was very weak evidence. Any lawyer employed for the defence could easily find arguments to upset the whole. Day by day, as he thought it over, his reliance upon the insanity resource grew less and less—and yet he could not see what else there was to do. He racked his brain. The man, like others, was in fact fascinated by the enormous property at stake: he could not get it out of his mind. It haunted him day and night. He ransacked his memory, called up all his reading, all his observation, all that he had heard—every expedient and plan that had come under his notice for gaining an end. For a time, however, it was in vain. It is often the case that when we seek an idea it flies from us, and will not be constrained, not even by weeks of the deeply-pondering state. Often the more we think upon a subject, the less we seem to see our way clear. And so it was with him. Sometimes a little change of scene, even a little manual exercise, will stimulate the imagination. So it was with him. He had an important and serious case to attend—a rich patient underwent an operation at his hands, and the physician grew so absorbed with his delicate manipulation and in genuine delight in his own skill, that Lucia and the property passed for a day or two completely out of his memory. This was followed by profound slumber, and next morning he awoke with the answer to the great question staring him in the face.