The few lines which showed agitation in the handwriting were calm in language, but very strange.  Patrick Monahan told me that he was extremely unhappy, and that he had reason to believe that I, and I alone, could do him good.  This, with the address,—­to a certain number in a street in Dublin,—­was all.

There was little time before the post went out; I was almost unable to write from illness; but, after a second glance at this note, I felt that I dared not delay my reply.  I did not think that it was money that he wished to ask.  I did not think that he was insane.  I could not conceive why he should apply to me, nor why he did not explain what he wished from me; but I had a strong impression that it was safest to reply at once.  I did so, in half a dozen lines, promising to write next day, after a further attempt to discover his meaning, and begging him to consider how completely in the dark I was as to him and his case.  It was well that I wrote that day.  Long after, when he was letting me into all the facts of his life, he told me that he had made my replying at once or not the turning-point of his fate.  If the post had brought him nothing, he would have drowned himself in the Liffey.

My second letter was the only sort of letter that it could be,—­an account of my own conjectures about him, and of my regret that I could see no probability of my being of use to him, except in as far as my experience of many troubles might enable me to speak suitably to him.  I added some few words on the dangers attending any sort of trouble, when too keenly felt.

In answer to my first note came a few lines, telling me that the purpose of his application was mainly answered, and that my reply was of altogether greater consequence than I could have any idea of.  He was less unhappy now, and believed he should never be so desperately wretched again.  Wild as this might appear, I was still persuaded that he was not insane.

By the next post came a rather bulky packet.  It contained, besides a letter from him, two or three old parchment documents, which showed that Patrick’s forefathers had filled some chief municipal offices in the city in which the family had been settled for several generations.  I had divined that Patrick was a gentleman; and he now showed me that he came of a good and honorable family, and had been well-educated.  He was an orphan, and had not a relation in the world,—­if I remember right.  It was evident that he was poor; but he did not ask for money, nor seem to write on that account.  He aspired to a literary life, and believed he should have done so, even if he had had the means of professional education.  But he did not ask me for aid in trying his powers in literature.  It was very perplexing; and the fact became presently clear that he expected me to tell him how I could be of use to him,—­he being in no way able to afford me that information.  I may as well give here the key to the mystery, which