As the result of this second rebuff Roch’s anger became coupled with hatred—­an instinctive hatred of humanity—­especially after his pourparlers with the British Admiralty came to naught.  The English being practical people, did not at first repulse Thomas Roch.  They sounded him and tried to get round him; but Roch would listen to nothing.  His secret was worth millions, and these millions he would have, or they would not have his secret.  The Admiralty at last declined to have anything more to do with him.

It was in these conditions, when his intellectual trouble was growing daily worse, that he made a last effort by approaching the American Government.  That was about eighteen months before this story opens.

The Americans, being even more practical than the English, did not attempt to bargain for Roch’s fulgurator, to which, in view of the French chemist’s reputation, they attached exceptional importance.  They rightly esteemed him a man of genius, and took the measures justified by his condition, prepared to indemnify him equitably later.

As Thomas Roch gave only too visible proofs of mental alienation, the Administration, in the very interest of his invention, judged it prudent to sequestrate him.

As is already known, he was not confined in a lunatic asylum, but was conveyed to Healthful House, which offered every guarantee for the proper treatment of his malady.  Yet, though the most careful attention had been devoted to him, no improvement had manifested itself.

Thomas Roch, let it be again remarked—­this point cannot be too often insisted upon—­incapable though he was of comprehending and performing the ordinary acts and duties of life, recovered all his powers when the field of his discoveries was touched upon.  He became animated, and spoke with the assurance of a man who knows whereof he is descanting, and an authority that carried conviction with it.  In the heat of his eloquence he would describe the marvellous qualities of his fulgurator and the truly extraordinary effects it caused.  As to the nature of the explosive and of the deflagrator, the elements of which the latter was composed, their manufacture, and the way in which they were employed, he preserved complete silence, and all attempts to worm the secret out of him remained ineffectual.  Once or twice, during the height of the paroxysms to which he was occasionally subject, there had been reason to believe that his secret would escape him, and every precaution had been taken to note his slightest utterance.  But Thomas Roch had each time disappointed his watchers.  If he no longer preserved the sentiment of self-preservation, he at least knew how to preserve the secret of his discovery.

Pavilion No. 17 was situated in the middle of a garden that was surrounded by hedges, and here Roch was accustomed to take exercise under the surveillance of his guardian.  This guardian lived in the same pavilion, slept in the same room with him, and kept constant watch upon him, never leaving him for an hour.  He hung upon the lightest words uttered by the patient in the course of his hallucinations, which generally occurred in the intermediary state between sleeping and waking—­watched and listened while he dreamed.