I made him have candles lighted, and saw the room looking cheery and inhabited before I left him.  I told him that he must regard his illness strictly as one dependent on physical, though subtle physical causes.  I told him that he had evidence of God’s care and love in the deliverance which he had just described, and that I had perceived with pain that he seemed to regard its peculiar features as indicating that he had been delivered over to spiritual reprobation.  Than such a conclusion nothing could be, I insisted, less warranted; and not only so, but more contrary to facts, as disclosed in his mysterious deliverance from that murderous influence during his Shropshire excursion.  First, his niece had been retained by his side without his intending to keep her near him; and, secondly, there had been infused into his mind an irresistible repugnance to execute the dreadful suggestion in her presence.

As I reasoned this point with him, Mr. Jennings wept.  He seemed comforted.  One promise I exacted, which was that should the monkey at any time return, I should be sent for immediately; and, repeating my assurance that I would give neither time nor thought to any other subject until I had thoroughly investigated his case, and that to-morrow he should hear the result, I took my leave.

Before getting into the carriage I told the servant that his master was far from well, and that he should make a point of frequently looking into his room.  My own arrangements I made with a view to being quite secure from interruption.

I merely called at my lodgings, and with a travelling-desk and carpet-bag, set off in a hackney carriage for an inn about two miles out of town, called “The Horns,” a very quiet and comfortable house, with good thick walls.  And there I resolved, without the possibility of intrusion or distraction, to devote some hours of the night, in my comfortable sitting-room, to Mr. Jennings’ case, and so much of the morning as it might require.

(There occurs here a careful note of Dr. Hesselius’ opinion upon the case, and of the habits, dietary, and medicines which he prescribed.  It is curious—­some persons would say mystical.  But, on the whole, I doubt whether it would sufficiently interest a reader of the kind I am likely to meet with, to warrant its being here reprinted.  The whole letter was plainly written at the inn where he had hid himself for the occasion.  The next letter is dated from his town lodgings.)

I left town for the inn where I slept last night at half-past nine, and did not arrive at my room in town until one o’clock this afternoon.  I found a letter in Mr. Jennings’ hand upon my table.  It had not come by post, and, on inquiry, I learned that Mr. Jennings’ servant had brought it, and on learning that I was not to return until to-day, and that no one could tell him my address, he seemed very uncomfortable, and said his orders from his master were that that he was not to return without an answer.